Sensitivity to Change of Cartilage Morphometry Using Coronal FLASH Sagittal DESS and Coronal MPR DESS Protocols – Comparative Data from the Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI)

摘要

ObjectiveThe Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI) is targeted at identifying sensitive biomarkers and risk factors of symptomatic knee OA onset and progression. Quantitative cartilage imaging in the OAI relies on validated FLASH sequences that suffer from relatively long acquisition times, and on a near-isotropic double echo steady state (DESS) sequence. We therefore directly compared the sensitivity to cartilage thickness changes and the correlation of these protocols longitudinally.