IN VIVO CO-REGISTERED PROTON T1? AND SODIUM MRI OF THE HUMAN KNEE

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative disorder resulting from the biochemical breakdown of articular cartilage in the synovial joints. A loss of proteoglycans (PG), a component of the extracellular matrix in cartilage, has been shown to be the predominant change in early OA. T1¿ MRI has been shown to be sensitive to the interactions between macromolecules, such as proteoglycans, and bulk water. It can then be used as an indicator of the early biochemical changes. Another early biochemical change resulting from the loss of negatively charged proteoglycans induced by OA involves the loss of sodium ions from the tissue to balance fixed charge density. Sodium MRI has also been used previously to explore this mechanism. Previous studies have shown the correlation between these two methods of inquiry into the health of articular cartilage to be quite strong. This study aims to produce innately co-registered three-dimensional image sets by collecting all data without altering the positioning of the patient. The benefits attained by this method include an increased localization of data collected because the same image slices (with identical thickness and spacing) are acquired. All human studies were approved by the Institutional Review Board.