Quantitative measurements and infrastructural investigation of human meniscus
Date Issued
2011
Date
2011
Author(s)
Tsai, Ping-Huei
Abstract
Human meniscus plays an critical role in the stability of knee joint, such as load bearing and distribution. In addition, several reports demonstrated the important relationships among articular cartilage, menisci and osteoarthritis. Recently, quantitative measurement of the knee cartilage is helpful for the early detection of OA. MRI provides a non-invasive method and the quantitative T1 and T2 measurements are useful to reflecting the molecular change of the related architecture. However, human meniscus is not a homogeneous substance, in which blood supply and fiber orientation are quite different according to regional discrepancy. As a result, the first part of our research is using MR T2 measurements to investigate the discrepancy between different zones as well as gender difference. On the other hand, although previous study indicated the significant relationship between fiber orientations of meniscal infrastructure and the functions of load bearing and distribution, it is difficult to simultaneously obtain a high SNR and contrast meniscal images. Therefore, the second part of our research is based on the improvement of the imaging sequence, using minimal RF excitation pulse in conjunction with radial sampling scheme to reduce echo time, and combined with adiabatic fat suppression pulse to improve the image contrast. Our preliminary result demonstrated the feasibility of visualization of meniscal infrastructure.
Subjects
MRI
Osteoarthritis
meniscus
Type
thesis
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