Objective: The overall goal of this research is to identify completely non-invasive in vivo markers of cartilage degeneration following wrist injury in order to facilitate assessment and treatment of wrist injuries and prevention of osteoarthritis as a result of injury. In this study, the transverse relaxation time, T2, from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the wrist cartilage of subjects exhibiting unilateral scapholunate dissociation was analyzed to evaluate changes in the biochemical status of the cartilage in the wrist following injury.Methods: Data collection consisted of MRI scans of the wrist using 2 separate 3T scanners. Fourteen subjects were analyzed, each subject completed scans to evaluate T2 relaxation times on both their injured and contralateral (normal) wrist. Scans were conducted with a maximum of 0.390625 mm/pixel in-plane pixel size and 1 mm slice thickness. A series of four time echo scans ranging from 15-80 ms were collected. T2 relaxation time for each subject was calculated by registering these echo time scans and fitting the corresponding intensity values to an exponential decay curve. Results:The T2 results from all subjects indicated no statistically significant changes with presence of injury. The use of two separate MRI scanners of the same strength of magnet coil did not cause a significant change in measurement values. Conclusions:Our data suggests that either T2 relaxation time does not change with the presence of scapholunate injury in the wrist or that the change was insufficient to be detected in this study. The results from this study may function as a baseline for future studies examining the potential positive effect surgical repair has on T2 relaxation times.

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a serious and frequently occuring outcome of untreated scapholunate dissocation, the most common form of carpal instability in the wrist [1]. As cartilage degenerates, the water content of surrounding tissue becomes less bound. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) T2 relaxation time is longer when water content is less bound [2]. MRI offers the advantageous combination of detailed images of soft tissues such as cartilage with the ability to evaluate free water content. Contrasting the various T2 relaxation times found in the cartilage of healthy wrist surfaces with those of injured wrists is thereby proposed as a method of evaluating cartilage degeneration. We hypothesized that T2 values obtained would be longer for the cartilage of the injured wrists. Though surgical treatment may relieve pain and restore some function to the wrist, it is hypothesized that T2 relaxation time will remain increased after surgery as cartilage regeneration is a very slow process, if it happens at all. The goal of this research is to provide a method to evaluate the biochemical and infer the biomechanical integrity of cartilage for various cartilage surfaces in a wrist after injury.

Objective: The goal of this study was to demonstrate a methodology to observe the relationship between joint contact pressure and cartilage T2 relaxation times in three-dimensional space. Methods: One subject diagnosed with unilateral scapholunate dissociation had both injured and uninjured wrists scanned using a Siemens 3T Skyra magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. Four time echo scans were performed with TE ranging 15–61[Formula: see text]ms with the hand relaxed. T2 maps were constructed using a custom Matlab code, and these maps were registered to anatomical images for the same subject. The anatomical images were used to construct surface contact models and calculate contact pressures for a simple grasp activity in a prior study. Contact pressures and T2 relaxation times were analyzed using regression analysis. Results and Conclusion: This study demonstrates the feasibility of comparing T2 relaxation times and contact pressure data. For this single demonstration subject, it is not surprising that no relationship was found between T2 relaxation times for the articular cartilage and contact pressures in the normal wrist, contact pressures in the wrist with injury, nor contact pressure changes due to injury. However, the method has been demonstrated and may be useful to evaluate the influence of joint injuries or other pathologies on T2 relaxation times in the context of changes in joint contact pressures with larger cohorts of subjects.

Purpose: Our objective was to investigate the effects of injury and surgical repair on T2 relaxation time, as a non-invasive biomarker of changes in the biophysical and biochemical status of the cartilage in the wrist. Methods: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was performed using 3T scanners. Nine subjects attended scan sessions for both their injured wrist and contralateral (normal) wrist preoperation and post-operation. T2 relaxation times were individually calculated by each cartilage surface of the radioscaphoid, radiolunate, capitoscaphoid and capitolunate articulations. Results: T2 relaxation times were not found to vary significantly according to injury state. Overall, findings were