Reproducibility of the quantitative assessment of cartilage morphology and trabecular bone structure with magnetic resonance imaging at 7 T.
To assess the reproducibility of quantitative measurements of cartilage morphology and trabecular bone structure of the knee at 7 T, high-resolution sagittal spoiled gradient-echo images and high-resolution axial fully refocused steady-state free-precession (SSFP) images from six healthy volunteers were acquired with a 7-T scanner. The subjects were repositioned between repeated scans to test the reproducibility of the measurements. The reproducibility of each measurement was evaluated using the coefficient(s) of variation (CV). The computed CV were 1.13% and 1.55% for cartilage thickness and cartilage volume, respectively, and were 2.86%, 1.07%, 2.27% and 3.30% for apparent bone volume over total volume fraction (app.BV/TV), apparent trabecular number (app.Tb.N), apparent trabecular separation (app.Tb.Sp) and apparent trabecular thickness (app.Tb.Th), respectively. The results demonstrate that quantitative assessment of cartilage morphology and trabecular bone structure is reproducible at 7 T and motivates future musculoskeletal applications seeking the high-field strength's superior signal-to-noise ratio.
Department of Radiology, Musculoskeletal and Quantitative Imaging Research, University of California, Box 2520, San Francisco, CA 94158-2520, USA. jzuo@radiology.ucsf.edu
Jin
J
Zuo
Radu
R
Bolbos
Kate
K
Hammond
Xiaojuan
X
Li
Sharmila
S
Majumdar
D000328:Adult; D001842:Bone and Bones / Q000473:pathology*; D002356:Cartilage / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D007719:Knee Joint / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000473:pathology; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D015233:Models, Statistical; D012015:Reference Standards; D015203:Reproducibility of Results