Quantitative cartilage imaging of the human hind foot: Precision and inter‐subject variability

Abstract

Alterations of ankle cartilage are observed in degenerative and inflammatory joint disease, but cartilage cannot be directly visualized by radiography. The purpose of this study was therefore to analyze the feasibility and precision of quantitative cartilage imaging in the human hind foot (talocrural, talotarsal, and intertarsal joints), and to report the inter-subject variability for cartilage volume, thickness and surface areas. The feet of 16 healthy volunteers were imaged using a 3D gradient-echo magnetic resonance imaging sequence with water-excitation. After interpolation to a resolution of 1 z 0.125 y 0.125 mm? the cartilage plates were segmented, and the cartilage volume, thickness, and surface areas determined. The precision (four repeated measurements) was examined in eight volunteers, the RMS average CV% being 2.1% to 10.9% in single joint surfaces, and < 3% for the cumulative values of all joints. The mean cartilage thickness ranged from 0.57 i 0.08 (navicular surface) to 0.89 5 0 . 1 9 mm (trochlear surface for tibia). In conclusion this study shows that it is feasibIe to quantify thin cartilage layers in the hind foot under in vivo imaging conditions, and that the precision errors are substantially smaller than the inter-subject variability in healthy subjects.

The effects of exercise on human articular cartilage

“…1998; Graichen et al. 2000, 2003; Al Ali et al. 2002), a high spatial resolution is required so that a sufficient number of image points (pixels) are available to characterize the thickness of the tissue throughout the joint surface, including areas with thin cartilage coverage.…”

Determination of real-time in-vivo cartilage contact deformation in the ankle joint

“…Early studies have focused on measurements of the articular surface shapes, cartilage volume as well as thickness in the knee (Peterfy et al, 1994;Piplani et al, 1996;Cicuttini et al, 1999;Cohen et al, 1999;Faber et al, 2001;Jaremko et al, 2006), ankle (Tan et al, 1996;Al-Ali et al, 2002), shoulder (Graichen et al, 2003) and hip (McGibbon et al, 1998(McGibbon et al, , 2003Nishii et al, 1998Nishii et al, , 2004Nakanishi et al, 1999;Naish et al, 2006). Cartilage response to various loading conditions has also attracted increasing attention in order to understand injury mechanism as well as functional adaptation of the cartilage (Brommer et al, 2005;Plochocki et al, 2006).…”

In vivo precision of quantitative shoulder cartilage measurements, and changes after spinal cord injury

“…The in vivo precision of the cartilage surface area, volume, mean, and maximal thickness ranged from 1.5% to 6.5% (CV%), and was 4.5% for the mean cartilage thickness. These precision errors are higher than those in the knee (20), but lower than those in the hind foot (23). The SD of repeated measurements for the mean cartilage thickness was 0.06 mm.…”

“…High‐resolution, fat‐suppressed, gradient‐echo sequences and advanced image postprocessing software have been shown to permit quantitative assessments of knee joint cartilage with high accuracy and reproducibility (18–20). Validation has also been performed in the human elbow (21) and shoulder joint (22), and a satisfactory in vivo precision has been reported in the human hind foot (23). However, no studies to date have dealt with the in vivo precision (immediate test‐retest reproducibility) of quantitative analysis of shoulder cartilage, which displays substantially lower cartilage thickness than the knee.…”