Sonographic assessment of femoral cartilage thickness in healthy adults

Abstract

Objective This study was performed to obtain normative data of the distal femoral cartilage thickness in healthy adults by ultrasound. Methods This cross-sectional study included 72 healthy adults. The demographic characteristics of the participants were recorded, and the thickness of the femoral articular cartilage was measured using a 5- to 18-MHz linear probe. Results Significant statistical difference towards the male side at left medial condyle (P = 0.001) and left lateral condyle (P = 0.009). Weakly positive statistical difference was noted towards the male side at right medial condyle (P = 0.06) and right lateral condyle (P = 0.07). The femoral cartilage thickness in the study participants did not correlate with weight, body mass index, and age (P >0.05). Positive statistical correlation with height noted in right medial condyle, right lateral condyle, right intercondylar area, and left medial condyle. Conclusion This study increases the pool of normative data of femoral cartilage thickness measurements. Additionally, the findings of this study emphasize the fact that women have thinner cartilage than men in four of the studied parameters.

Femoral Cartilage Thickness in Knee Osteoarthritis Patients and Healthy Adults: An Ultrasound Measurement Comparison

“…Te OA group showed a thinner FC in the six measurement locations [10]. When compared to FC thickness among healthy adults, several studies showed thicker mean FC [11,12]. Tese fndings showed a signifcant diference in measurements on the right and left MC sides between the OA and control groups.…”

Sexual Dimorphism in the Extracellular and Pericellular Matrix of Articular Cartilage

“…Previous clinical evidence using MRI has revealed sex differences in cartilage at childhood and at early adulthood. [24][25][26][27][28] Moreover, a recent report that analyzed the transcriptome of healthy knee cartilage from men and women revealed 36 sex-specific differential expression genes (DEGs), indicating sex differences at the molecular level. Although the scope of that study was not to compare pre-and postmenopausal age, the donors were young, with an age range of 27 to 57 years for females (n = 5, mean age 42 years), and 18 to 61 years for males (n = 13, mean age 34.5 years).…”

Reliability and concurrent validity of three-dimensional ultrasound for quantifying knee cartilage volume

“…Several studies have previously investigated the application of 2D US for evaluating femoral condylar cartilage for KOA assessments [ [29] , [30] , [31] , [32] ]. However, quantitative image analysis of non-invasive knee US has only been reported for cartilage thickness measurements but not entire cartilage volumes [ [33] , [34] , [35] ]. Quantitative image analysis may provide more sensitive information regarding early KOA than semi-quantitative grading scales, which are subjective and potentially susceptible to US operator/rater differences.…”