Effect of multislice acquisition on T1 and T2 measurements of articular cartilage at 3T.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of magnetization transfer on multislice T1 and T2 measurements of articular cartilage.


METHODS
A set of phantoms with different concentrations of collagen and contrast agent (Gd-DTPA2-) were used for the in vitro study. A total of 20 healthy knees were used for the in vivo study. T1 and T2 measurements were performed using fast-spin-echo inversion-recovery (FSE-IR) sequence and multi-spin-echo (MSE) sequence, respectively, in both in vitro and in vivo studies. We investigated the difference in T1 and T2 values between that measured by single-slice acquisition and that measured by multislice acquisition.


RESULTS
Regarding T1 measurement, a large drop of T1 in all slices and also a large interslice variation in T1 were observed when multislice acquisition was used. Regarding T2 measurement, a substantial drop of T2 in all slices was observed; however, there was no apparent interslice variation when multislice acquisition was used.


CONCLUSIONS
This study demonstrated that the adaptation of multislice acquisition technique for T1 measurement using FSE-IR methodology is difficult and its use for clinical evaluation is problematic. In contrast, multislice acquisition for T2 measurement using MSE was clinically applicable if inaccuracies caused by multislice acquisition were taken into account.
Watanabe
Atsuya
A
Department of Clinical Research, Unit for MR Spectroscopy and Methodology, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland. atsuyan1@pa2.so-net.ne.jp
Boesch
Chris
C
Obata
Takayuki
T
Anderson
Suzanne E
SE
D000328:Adult; D002358:Cartilage, Articular / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D003287:Contrast Media; D005260:Female; D019786:Gadolinium DTPA; D006801:Humans; D007719:Knee Joint / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging
D003287:Contrast Media; D019786:Gadolinium DTPA