Comparison of Quantitative and Semiquantitative Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced MRI With Respect to Their Correlation to Delayed Gadolinium-Enhanced MRI of the Cartilage in Patients With Early Rheumatoid Arthritis

Abstract

Semiquantitative and quantitative analyses of perfusion are applicable to show that cartilage damage correlates with the inflammation activity despite the absence of joint space narrowing.

Cartilage quantification using contrast-enhanced MRI in the wrist of rheumatoid arthritis: cartilage loss is associated with bone marrow edema

“…17,18 The advantage of our in-house software is that it can detect cartilage area in carpal joints using conventional MR images; it takes less time to acquire images and data analysis is simpler compared to dedicated pulse sequences adopted in previous studies. 8,[17][18][19][20] Furthermore, our method does not require highly trained specialists who can evaluate cartilage visually because the software only requires simple ROI placements for the measurement of the adductor pollicis MSI and for the measurement of cartilage quantification. Repeatability of our method was confirmed by almost perfect intraobserver reproducibility (ICC = 0.950 and 0.979 for SC and RS joints, respectively), which is comparable to that for dGEMRIC study of the wrist joints in healthy subjects utilizing gadoteric acid or Gd-DTPA at 3T magnet (ICC = 0.89).…”

Magnetresonanztomografie peripherer Gelenke

“…Darüber hinaus spielen zudem dynamische Untersuchungsverfahren, sogenannte dynamic contrast enhanced (DCE) MRT, eine Rolle, die das An-und Abfluten von Kontrastmittel in einem peripheren Gelenk messen, quantifizieren und somit Rückschlüsse auf die lokale Entzündung erlauben. Arbeiten konnten dabei sowohl eine Korrelation zwischen mittels DCE-MRT gemessener erhöhter Perfusion und dem RAMRIS als auch zwischen Perfusion und Knorpelqualität nachweisen [47,48].…”

Cartilage and bone damage in rheumatoid arthritis

“…Müller-Lutz et al [ 35 ] investigated the correlation between semiquantitative and quantitative dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) parameters with dGEMRIC of the metacarpophalangeal joints (MCP) of patients with early RA using a 3-T MRI scanner. Significant correlations were noted between DCE parameters and the RA MRI score of the second MCP joint.…”

“…There was a significant negative correlation between DCE parameters and dGEMRIC, and no association between DCE parameters and joint space width. The authors concluded that semiquantitative and quantitative analyses of perfusion are applicable to show that cartilage damage correlates with inflammation activity despite the absence of joint space narrowing [ 35 ].…”