title: Initial results on development and application of statistical atlas of femoral cartilage in osteoarthritis to determine sex differences in structure: data from the Osteoarthritis Initiative.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To create an average atlas of knee femoral cartilage morphology, to apply the atlas for quantitative assessment of osteoarthritis (OA), and to study localized sex differences.
  
  
  METHODS
  High-resolution 3D magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data of the knee cartilage collected at 3 T as part of the Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI) were used. An atlas was created based on images from 30 male Caucasian high-risk subjects with no symptomatic OA at baseline. A female cohort of age- and disease-matched Caucasian subjects was also selected from the OAI database. The Jacobian determinant was calculated from the deformation vector fields that nonlinearly registered each subject to the atlas. Statistical analysis based on the general linear model was used to test for regions of significant differences in the Jacobian values between the two cohorts.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The average Jacobian was larger in women (1.2 ± 0.078) than in men (1.08 ± 0.097), showing that after global scaling to the male template, the female cartilage was thicker in most regions. Regions showing significant structural differences include the medial weight bearing region, the trochlear (femoral) side of the patellofemoral compartment, and the lateral posterior condyle.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Sex-based differences in cartilage structure were localized using tensor based morphometry in a cohort of high-risk subjects.
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Engineering Department, University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA.
authors.forename: Hussain Z
authors.initials: HZ
authors.lastname: Tameem
authors.forename: Siamak
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ardekani
authors.forename: Leanne
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Seeger
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Thompson
authors.forename: Usha S
authors.initials: US
authors.lastname: Sinha
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D002356:Cartilage / Q000473:pathology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D005269:Femur / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015233:Models, Statistical; D010003:Osteoarthritis / Q000473:pathology*; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D012306:Risk; D012727:Sex Characteristics