Primary anterior cruciate ligament repair-morphological and quantitative assessment by 7-T MRI and clinical outcome after 1.5 years.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to assess morphological and quantitative changes of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and cartilage after ACL repair.

Methods: 7T MRI of the knee was acquired in 31 patients 1.5 years after ACL repair and in 13 controls.

Cinematic rendering in rheumatic diseases-Photorealistic depiction of pathologies improves disease understanding for patients.

Background: Patient education is crucial for successful chronic disease management. Current education material for rheumatic patients however rarely includes images of disease pathologies, limiting patients' disease understanding. Cinematic rendering (CR) is a new tool that allows segmentation of standard medical images (DICOMs) into pictures that illustrate disease pathologies in a photorealistic way.

Concise report: a minimal-invasive method to retrieve and identify entheseal tissue from psoriatic arthritis patients.

Objectives: To establish a minimally invasive biopsy technique for the analysis of entheseal tissue in patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA).

Methods: Human cadavers were used for establishing the technique to retrieve tissue from the lateral humeral epicondyle enthesis (cadaveric biopsies). After biopsy, the entire enthesis was surgically resected (cadaveric resections).

Changes in T2 Relaxation Time Mapping of Intervertebral Discs Adjacent to Vertebrae after Kyphoplasty Correlate with the Physical Clinical Outcome of Patients.

(1) Background: To assess whether clinical outcomes correlate with tissue changes in the intervertebral discs (IVDs) after kyphoplasty as treatment for vertebral fractures, quantitative MRI was applied. (2) Methods: Quantitative T2 mapping acquired in a 3 T MRI scanner of the thoracolumbar spine was performed in 20 patients two years after kyphoplasty. The IVDs adjacent and nonadjacent to the treated vertebrae were divided into six regions of interest (ROI), which were further categorised into inner (ROI 2-5) and outer (ROI 1 and 6) parts of the IVDs, and the T2 values were analysed.

SARS-CoV-2 vaccination responses in untreated, conventionally treated and anticytokine-treated patients with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases.

Objectives: To better understand the factors that influence the humoral immune response to vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 in patients with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs).

Methods: Patients and controls from a large COVID-19 study, with (1) no previous history of COVID-19, (2) negative baseline anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG test and (3) SARS-CoV-2 vaccination at least 10 days before serum collection were measured for anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG. Demographic, disease-specific and vaccination-specific data were recorded.

Regions at Risk in the Knee Joint of Young Professional Soccer Players: Longitudinal Evaluation of Early Cartilage Degeneration by Quantitative T2 Mapping in 3 T MRI.

Purpose: The study aims to detect regions at risk for (pre-)osteoarthritis in the tibiofemoral joint of young professional soccer players by evaluating cartilage composition by T2 mapping in a 3 T magnetic resonance imaging setting.

Methods: In this longitudinal study, 20 professional adolescent soccer players were included. Tibiofemoral cartilage was assessed by quantitative T2 mapping and T2 values were evaluated by regions of interest analysis.

T2 Mapping as a New Method for Quantitative Assessment of Cartilage Damage in Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Objective: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is associated with damage of the articular cartilage and the periarticular bone. While imaging of bone damage has substantially improved in recent years, direct imaging of the articular cartilage of the hand joints in patients with RA is still challenging. The study used T2 mapping of the finger joints to assess cartilage damage in RA.

Modular Lattice Constructs for Biological Joint Resurfacing.

The repair of large articular cartilage lesions is still a major challenge. In particular, the fixation of the grafts to the subchondral bone plate represents an unresolved problem. In this work, we present a completely novel concept based on a modular lattice, combining building blocks of different ceramic materials, anchoring pins and space for cell-loaded hydrogels or other scaffold materials.

Quantitative T2 Mapping Shows Increased Degeneration in Adjacent Intervertebral Discs Following Kyphoplasty.

Objective: A minimally invasive treatment of osteoporotic and nonosteoporotic thoracic and lumbar spine fractures is cement augmentation (kyphoplasty). Little is known about the impact on adjacent intervertebral discs. A quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) approach in addition to morphological MRI is desirable to evaluate changes in the intervertebral disc.

Using Cartilage MRI T2-Mapping to Analyze Early Cartilage Degeneration in the Knee Joint of Young Professional Soccer Players.

Objective: To evaluate and characterize the appearance of articular cartilage in the tibiofemoral joint of young professional soccer players using T2-relaxation time evaluation on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Design: In this study, we included 57 male adolescents from the youth academy of a professional soccer team. The MRI scans were acquired of the knee joint of the supporting leg.

3D-isotropic high-resolution morphological imaging and quantitative T2 mapping as biomarkers for gender related differences after matrix-associated autologous chondrocyte transplantation (MACT).

The aim of this study was to determine in vivo high-resolution morphological and biochemical gender related differences in cartilage repair tissue (MACT). Forty patients were examined clinically and by MR scans at 3T-MRI (coronal 3D True-FISP sequence for morphologic assessment and multi-echo spin-echo T2-mapping for biochemical assessment of healthy cartilage and MACT cartilage). Mean T2 values in repair tissue in the deep zone showed significantly shorter T2 times in females (p = 0.

Stimulation of the soluble guanylate cyclase (sGC) inhibits fibrosis by blocking non-canonical TGFβ signalling.

Objectives: We have previously described the antifibrotic role of the soluble guanylate cyclase (sGC). The mode of action, however, remained elusive. In the present study, we describe a novel link between sGC signalling and transforming growth factor β (TGFβ) signalling that mediates the antifibrotic effects of the sGC.

Impact of different coils on biochemical T2 and T2* relaxation time mapping of articular patella cartilage.

Objective: The purpose of our study was to assess T2 and T2* relaxation time values of patella cartilage in healthy volunteers using three different coils at 3.0 Tesla MRI and their influence on the quantitative values.

Methods: Fifteen volunteers were examined on the same 3-Tesla MR unit using three different coils: (i) a dedicated eight-channel knee phased-array coil; (ii) an eight-channel multi-purpose coil, and (iii) a one-channel 1H surface coil.