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Steady‐state diffusion‐weighted imaging of in vivo knee cartilage
Author(s) -
Miller Karla L.,
Hargreaves Brian A.,
Gold Garry E.,
Pauly John M.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
magnetic resonance in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.696
H-Index - 225
eISSN - 1522-2594
pISSN - 0740-3194
DOI - 10.1002/mrm.10696
Subject(s) - diffusion mri , in vivo , cartilage , knee cartilage , osteoarthritis , cartilage damage , articular cartilage , diffusion , biomedical engineering , nuclear magnetic resonance , magnetic resonance imaging , nuclear medicine , materials science , medicine , radiology , physics , anatomy , pathology , biology , alternative medicine , microbiology and biotechnology , thermodynamics
Diffusion‐weighted imaging (DWI) has strong potential as a diagnostic for early cartilage damage, with clinical impact for diseases such as osteoarthritis. However, in vivo DWI of cartilage has proven difficult with conventional methods due to the short T 2 . This work presents a 3D steady‐state DWI sequence that is able to image short‐ T 2 species with high SNR. When combined with 2D navigator correction of motion‐induced phase artifacts, this method enables high resolution in vivo DWI of cartilage. In vivo knee images in healthy subjects are presented with high SNR (SNR = 110) and submillimeter in‐plane resolution (0.5 × 0.7 × 3.0 mm 3 ). A method for fitting the diffusion coefficient is presented which produces fits within 10% of literature values. This method should be applicable to other short‐ T 2 tissues, such as muscle, which are difficult to image using traditional DWI methods. Magn Reson Med 51:394–398, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.