Reproducibility of the quantitative assessment of cartilage morphology and trabecular bone structure with magnetic resonance imaging at 7 T

Magn Reson Imaging. 2008 May;26(4):560-6. doi: 10.1016/j.mri.2007.10.007. Epub 2007 Dec 3.

Abstract

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.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Bone and Bones / pathology*
  • Cartilage / anatomy & histology
  • Cartilage / pathology*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
  • Knee Joint / anatomy & histology
  • Knee Joint / pathology
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging / instrumentation
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging / methods*
  • Male
  • Models, Statistical
  • Reference Standards
  • Reproducibility of Results