Articular cartilage of the knee: rapid three-dimensional MR imaging at 3.0 T with IDEAL balanced steady-state free precession--initial experience.
Institutional review board approval and informed consent were obtained for this HIPAA-compliant study. In this study, iterative decomposition of water and fat with echo asymmetry and least-squares estimation (IDEAL) balanced steady-state free precession (bSSFP), fat-suppressed bSSFP, and fat-suppressed spoiled gradient-echo (GRE) sequences for 3.0-T magnetic resonance (MR) imaging of articular knee cartilage were prospectively compared in five healthy volunteers. Cartilage and fluid signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), cartilage-fluid contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), SNR efficiency, CNR efficiency, image quality, and fat suppression were compared. Fat-suppressed bSSFP and IDEAL bSSFP had higher SNR efficiency of cartilage (P < .01) than did GRE. IDEAL bSSFP had higher cartilage-fluid CNR efficiency than did fat-suppressed bSSFP or GRE (P < .01). Fat-suppressed bSSFP and IDEAL bSSFP had higher image quality than did GRE (P < .01). GRE and IDEAL bSSFP had significantly better fat-water separation or fat saturation than did fat-suppressed bSSFP (P < .05). IDEAL bSSFP is a promising method for imaging articular knee cartilage.
Gold
Garry E
GE
Department of Radiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, 300 Pasteur Dr, SO-68B, Stanford, CA 94305-5105, USA. gold@stanford.edu
Reeder
Scott B
SB
Yu
Huanzhou
H
Kornaat
Peter
P
Shimakawa
Ann S
AS
Johnson
Jane W
JW
Pelc
Norbert J
NJ
Beaulieu
Christopher F
CF
Brittain
Jean H
JH
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D016477:Artifacts; D002358:Cartilage, Articular / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D007719:Knee Joint / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D011446:Prospective Studies; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric