Age‐Dependent Changes in Knee Cartilage T₁, T₂, and T_1pSimultaneously Measured Using MRI Fingerprinting

Abstract

Background Magnetic resonance fingerprinting (MRF) techniques have been recently described for simultaneous multiparameter cartilage mapping of the knee although investigation of their ability to detect early cartilage degeneration remains limited. Purpose To investigate age‐dependent changes in knee cartilage T1, T2, and T1p relaxation times measured using a three‐dimensional (3D) MRF sequence in healthy volunteers. Study Type Prospective. Subjects The study group consisted of 24 healthy asymptomatic human volunteers (15 males with mean age 34.9 ± 14.4 years and 9 females with mean age 44.5 ± 13.1 years). Field Strength/Sequence A 3.0 T gradient‐echo‐based 3D‐MRF sequence was used to simultaneously create proton density‐weighted images and T1, T2, and T1p maps of knee cartilage. Assessment Mean global cartilage and regional cartilage (lateral femur, lateral tibia, medial femur, medial tibia, and patella) T1, T2, and T1ρ relaxation times of the knee were measured. Statistical Tests Kruskal–Wallis tests were used to compared cartilage T1, T2, and T1ρ relaxation times between different age groups, while Spearman correlation coefficients was used to determine the association between age and cartilage T1, T2, and T1ρ relaxation times. The value of P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results Higher age groups showed higher global and regional cartilage T1, T2, and T1ρ. There was a significant difference between age groups in global cartilage T2 and T1ρ but no significant difference (P = 0.13) in global cartilage T1. Significant difference was also present between age groups in cartilage T2 and T1ρ for medial femur cartilage and medial tibia cartilage. There were significant moderate correlations between age and T2 and T1ρ for global cartilage (R2 = 0.63–0.64), medial femur cartilage (R2 = 0.50–0.56), and medial tibia cartilage (R2 = 0.54–0.66). Conclusion Cartilage T2 and T1p relaxation times simultaneously measured using a 3D‐MRF sequence in healthy volunteers showed age‐dependent changes in knee cartilage, primarily within the medial compartment.

Updates on Compositional MRI Mapping of the Cartilage: Emerging Techniques and Applications

“…The experiments showed excellent repeatability of PD, T 1 , T 2 , T 1ρ , and B 1 parameter estimations. The same group investigated the age‐dependent changes of knee cartilage using a 3D MRF sequence for T 1 , T 2 , and T 1ρ maps in healthy subjects 89 . Higher global and regional cartilage T 2 and T 1ρ measurements were found for higher age groups as shown in Fig.…”

“…(a) Boxplot of cartilage T 1 , T 2 , and T 1ρ values for the different age groups, (b) illustrative cartilage proton density (PD), T 1 , T 2 , and T 1ρ maps of the lateral cartilage 89 . LFC‐lateral femoral cartilage, LTC lateral tibial cartilage, MFC‐medial femoral cartilage, MTC‐medial tibial cartilage, PC‐patellar cartilage.…”

Editorial for “Age‐Dependent Changes in Knee Cartilage T1, T2, and T1p Simultaneously Measured Using MRI Fingerprinting”

“…This work demonstrated the use of 3D‐MRF to understand the natural variation of knee cartilage relaxation parameters with age and gender in a cohort of healthy individuals 9 . Results demonstrated that there are age‐related changes in T 1 , T 2 , and T 1 rho relaxation within knee cartilage, possibly due to proteoglycan and cartilage matrix composition changes with natural aging.…”

Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting

“…Preliminary clinical work in MRF on cartilage imaging has included using 3D MRF to quantify age-dependent differences in medial tibial and femoral cartilage between healthy patients and patients with knee osteoarthritis 177,178 . Quantification of hip cartilage using MRF has also been explored, with Sharafi et al 179 able to successfully characterize subregions of hip cartilage in both hips with excellent repeatability.…”

“…176 Preliminary clinical work in MRF on cartilage imaging has included using 3D MRF to quantify age-dependent differences in medial tibial and femoral cartilage between healthy patients and patients with knee osteoarthritis. 177,178 Quantification of hip cartilage using MRF has also been explored, with Sharafi et al 179 able to successfully characterize subregions of hip cartilage in both hips with excellent repeatability. Cloos et al 180 were able to use MRF to enable semiautomatic hip cartilage segmentation and for T1/T2/proton density quantitative mapping, enabling an efficient and highly reproducible workflow for quantitative hip cartilage assessment.…”