Faculty Collaboration Database

Biexponential T_1ρ relaxation mapping of human knee cartilage in vivo at 3 T. NMR Biomed 2017 Oct;30(10)

Date

06/21/2017

Pubmed ID

28632901

Pubmed Central ID

PMC5597480

DOI

10.1002/nbm.3760

Scopus ID

2-s2.0-85021256997 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site)   38 Citations

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the feasibility of biexponential T_1ρ relaxation mapping of human knee cartilage in vivo. A three-dimensional, customized, turbo-flash sequence was used to acquire T_1ρ -weighted images from healthy volunteers employing a standard 3-T MRI clinical scanner. A series of T_1ρ -weighted images was fitted using monoexponential and biexponential models with two- and four-parametric non-linear approaches, respectively. Non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U-statistical tests were used to evaluate the regional relaxation and gender differences, respectively, with a level of significance of P = 0.05. Biexponential relaxations were detected in the cartilage of all volunteers. The short and long relaxation components of T_1ρ were estimated to be 6.9 and 51.0 ms, respectively. Similarly, the fractions of short and long T_1ρ were 37.6% and 62.4%, respectively. The monoexponential relaxation of T_1ρ was 32.6 ms. The experiments showed good repeatability with a coefficient of variation (CV) of less than 20%. A biexponential relaxation model showed a better fit than a monoexponential model to the T_1ρ relaxation decay in knee cartilage. Biexponential T_1ρ components could potentially be used to increase the specificity to detect early osteoarthritis by the measurement of different water compartments and their fractions.

Author List

Sharafi A, Xia D, Chang G, Regatte RR

Author

Azadeh Sharafi PhD Assistant Professor in the Radiology department at Medical College of Wisconsin

MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold

Adult
Animals
Cartilage, Articular
Cattle
Computer Simulation
Female
Humans
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
Knee
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Monte Carlo Method
Reproducibility of Results