Stabilization of T relaxation and magnetization transfer in cartilage explants by immersion in perfluorocarbon liquid.

Purpose: Magnetic resonance imaging of ex vivo cartilage measures parameters such as T and magnetization transfer ratio (MTR), which reflect structural changes associated with osteoarthritis. Samples are often immersed in aqueous solutions to prevent dehydration and to to improve susceptibility matching. This study sought to determine the extent to which T and MTR changes are attributable to immersion alone and to identify immersion conditions to minimize this confounding factor.

Clinical high-resolution mapping of the proteoglycan-bound water fraction in articular cartilage of the human knee joint.

Purpose: We applied our recently introduced Bayesian analytic method to achieve clinically-feasible in-vivo mapping of the proteoglycan water fraction (PgWF) of human knee cartilage with improved spatial resolution and stability as compared to existing methods.

Materials And Methods: Multicomponent driven equilibrium single-pulse observation of T and T (mcDESPOT) datasets were acquired from the knees of two healthy young subjects and one older subject with previous knee injury. Each dataset was processed using Bayesian Monte Carlo (BMC) analysis incorporating a two-component tissue model.