Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Author:
Keywords:
Adolescent, Adult, Cartilage, Articular, Female, Femur, Gadolinium DTPA, Humans, Knee Joint, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Tibia, PSI_MIC, Science & Technology, Life Sciences & Biomedicine, Radiology, Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging, magnetic resonance, cartilage, T1 mapping, T2 mapping, knee, HUMAN ARTICULAR-CARTILAGE, SPATIAL VARIATION, GD-DTPA, MRI, T2, CONTRAST, DEGENERATION, GD-DTPA(2-), KNEE, 02 Physical Sciences, 09 Engineering, 11 Medical and Health Sciences, Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging, 3202 Clinical sciences
Abstract:
PURPOSE: To evaluate the influence of Gd-DTPA on cartilage T2 mapping using turbo-mixed (tMIX) imaging, and to show the possible usefulness of the tMIX technique for simultaneously acquiring T1 and T2 information in cartilage. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty volunteers underwent MRI of the knee using the tMIX sequence before and after gadolinium administration. T1 and T2 maps were calculated. The mean T1 was determined on the pre- and postcontrast T1 maps. T2 relaxation values before and after gadolinium administration were statistically analyzed. RESULTS: The obtained relaxation values are in correspondence with previously published data. The mean T1 before gadolinium administration was 449 msec +/- 34.2 msec (SD), and after gadolinium administration it was 357 msec +/- 55.8 msec (SD). The postcontrast T1 relaxation range was 221.5-572.8 msec. The mean T2 of the precontrast T2 maps was 34.2 msec +/- 3.1 msec (SD), and the mean T2 of the postcontrast T2 maps was 32.5 msec +/- 3.1 msec (SD). These are statistically significant different values. A correction for the postcontrast T2 values, using a back-calculation algorithm, yielded a 98% correlation with the precontrast T2 values. CONCLUSION: The absolute difference of pre- and postcontrast T2 is very small and is ruled out using the back-calculation algorithm. Combined T1-T2 tMIX cartilage mapping is a valuable alternative for separate T1 and T2 cartilage mapping.