title: Magnetic resonance compositional imaging of articular cartilage: What can we expect in veterinary medicine?
abstract: Since cartilage has limited ability to repair itself, it is useful to determine its biochemical composition early in clinical cases. It is also important to assess cartilage content in research animals in longitudinal studies in vivo. In recent years, compositional imaging techniques using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have been developed to assess the biochemical composition of cartilage. This article describes MR compositional imaging techniques, and discusses their use and interpretation. Technical concerns still limit the use of some techniques for research and clinical use, especially in veterinary medicine. Glycosaminoglycan chemical-exchange saturation transfer and sodium imaging are better used with high field magnets, which have limited availability. Long acquisition times are sometimes required, for instance in T1rho (ρ) and diffusion-weighted imaging, and necessitate general anaesthesia. Even in human medicine, some techniques such as ultra-short echo T2 are not fully validated, and nearly all techniques require validation for veterinary research and clinical practice. Delayed gadolinium-enhanced MRI of cartilage and T2 mapping appear to be the most applicable methods for compositional imaging of animal cartilage. Combining T2 mapping and T1ρ allows for the assessment of proteoglycans and the collagen network, respectively.
authors.affiliation: Integrated Veterinary Research Unit (IVRU), Department of Veterinary Medicine, Faculty of Sciences, University of Namur, Rue de Bruxelles 61, Namur 5000, Belgium.
authors.forename: Fanny
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Hontoir
authors.affiliation: Department of Musculoskeletal Biology, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Leahurst Campus, University of Liverpool, Neston, UK.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Clegg
authors.affiliation: Hôpital Mont-Godinne, Université Catholique de Louvain, Yvoir, Belgium.
authors.forename: Jean-François
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Nisolle
authors.affiliation: Department of Musculoskeletal Biology, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Leahurst Campus, University of Liverpool, Neston, UK.
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tew
authors.affiliation: Integrated Veterinary Research Unit (IVRU), Department of Veterinary Medicine, Faculty of Sciences, University of Namur, Rue de Bruxelles 61, Namur 5000, Belgium. Electronic address: jean-michel.vandeweerd@fundp.ac.be.
authors.forename: Jean-Michel
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Vandeweerd
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002358:Cartilage, Articular / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000662:veterinary*
keywords: Cartilage; Collagen; Imaging; MRI; Proteoglycans