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On March 10th, I arrived with Finnair just below the Arctic Circle. Oulu is one of the most northern Finnish...
The Salzburg Leopoldina Symposium 2025 at Paracelsus Medical University (PMU), and the Special Issue in Annals of Anatomy: „Skeletal Interfaces...
Cartilage composition, or cartilage morphology; cartilage relaxometry or morphometry? What is the “better” endpoint, or do we need both? And...
Congratulations to Kalpana Sharma on successfully defending her PhD thesis at Paracelsus Medizinische Privatuniversität (PMU) Salzburg. She presented her work...
The redesigned Chondrometrics Website and its flyer are now live, ready to be explored. Both media products showcase who Chondrometrics...
Chondrometrics GmbH. and its executives are excited to support the 20th International Workshop of Osteoarthritis Imaging (IWOAI), which will take...
We are overly happy that our review on: “Advances in Cartilage Imaging Techniques”, including Felix Eckstein and Wolfgang Wirth as...
After announcing the company’s participation in the IHI-PROBE (Patient Relevant Osteoarthritis endpoints using Big data Evaluation) project, launched on December...
Chondrometrics authors publish a review on clinical validation of automated AI based segmentation of articular tissues in a special issue...
As of January 1st, 2026 , Wolfgang Wirth has officially assumed the role of the CEO, taking over from Felix...
APPROACH (Applied Public-Private Research enabling OsteoArthritis Clinical Headway) was a European Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) project designed to improve stratification...
With the year ending, it is time to reflect what has been achieved in 2025 Thanks to our industry and...
ACR Open Rheumatol. 2025 Sep;7(9):e70085 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40977252/ With Jamie Collins from Harvard University and Chondrometrics SAB member as a first author,...
The Chondrometrics SAB met between October 11 and 15, 2025. It was a most inspiring week, where science, technology, and...
This year, the annual company retreat and training camp took place on the magical, traffic-free island of Frauenchiemsee (Chiemgau, Bavaria)...
The term virtual is now everywhere: Reality (VR) | Machine (VM) | Assistant (VA) | Network (VPN) | Currency (VC)...
Double Ace: A new original study published in Annals of Internal Medicine, a prestigious and influential medical journal that shapes...
Cambridge, UK - the perfect location, and Tom Turmezei - the perfect host (Fig. 1)
Chondrometrics authors an oral presentation at the largest European Rheuma Conference
The top Chondrometrics infographic designs have been “crowned” by public vote
Chondrometrics (Co-) Authors Present 3 Oral and 11 Poster Presentations in at Songdo Convensia in Incheon
Chondrometrics authors publish two concept papers on clinical trials in Skeletal Radiology and Osteoarthritis Imaging (OSTIMA)
First company training meeting in 2025 in Munich on March 13th
Boosting visibility and appeal of our scientific contributions
Representatives of Chondrometrics GmbH have published 15 papers in 2024, 11 of them in lead (first- or senior) author positions
Visits to David Hunter and team at the University of Sydney (NSW), the MUSQ retreat in Burleigh (Queensland), the QMSKI...
Representatives of Chondrometrics GmbH have submitted 4 abstracts as authors, and 9 abstracts as co-authors, to the OARSI 2025 Congress...
Final research meeting in Salzburg, and 10 year anniversary of 4P Pharma in Paris
Technical and clinical validation of deep-learning based analysis of laminar properties of knee articular cartilage in two models of early...
The design of a sample rapid magnetic resonance imaging acquisition protocol supporting assessment of multiple articular tissues and pathologies in...
Comparisons between unblinded and blinded analysis in the FORWARD RCT treatment phase, and blinded re-analysis of the post-treatment phase
The team of Chondrometrics GmbH and the Research Program for Imaging at Paracelsus Medizinische Privatuniversität presenting at the IWOAI in...
Sexual Dimorphism in Articular & Peri-Articular Tissue Anatomy – Key to Understanding Sex-Differences in Osteoarthritis?
Annual team meeting & training retreat at the Wengerhof, July 26-28
The team of Chondrometrics GmbH and partners present a poster titled: "Unbiased Analysis of Knee Cartilage Thickness Change Over Three...
Breaking Barriers Through Multi-Disciplinary Osteoarthritis Research - the OARSI World Congress in Vienna, April 18-21, 2024
David Hunter and Felix Eckstein to Vienna via 4 rivers and by bike
The team of Chondrometrics GmbH and the Research Program for Imaging at Paracelsus Medizinische Privatuniversität presenting at the World Congress...
30 Years of MRI-based cartilage & bone morphometry in knee osteoarthritis: From correlation to clinical trials
After initial meetings in 2019 & 2020, Chondrometrics organized the 3rd SABM in February 2024, now in the new office...
The team of Chondrometrics GmbH and the Research Program for Imaging at Paracelsus Medical University presenting at the Imaging Workshop...
In April 2004, Chondrometrics was founded in Munich, Germany, as a spin-off of the Ludwig Maximilians Universität (LMU) München by...
The team of Chondrometrics GmbH and the Research Program for Imaging at Paracelsus Medizinische Privatuniversität presenting at the World Congress...
Noël Spoelder, Tom D Turmezei, Dimitri A Kessler, James W Mackay, Simon C Mas...
Background: Women are more frequently affected by knee osteoarthritis (OA) than men. Differences in knee cartilage thickness have been proposed as an explanation, but it remains unclear whether these differences reflect true sex-specific variation or differences in body size. Clarifying this...
Herger S, Wirth W, Nüesch C, Bieri O, Egloff C, Eckstein F, Mündermann A
Objective: To investigate the 2-year changes in cartilage thickness and transverse relaxation time (T2) in magnetic resonance images (MRI) of ACL-injured (ACL_in) and uninjured contralateral knees (ACL_unin), compared to...
Guermazi A, Eckstein F, Gold G, Hayashi D, Jarraya M, Kogan F, Li X, Link TM,...
Articular cartilage is crucial for joint function; however, it has limited regenerative capacity when damaged, a hallmark of many rheumatic diseases. Non-invasive imaging is essential for early diagnosis, therapeutic monitoring and prognostication. MRI remains the reference standard, offering detailed assessment of both morphological and compositional cartilage changes. Technological...
Eckstein F, Putz R.
Introduction: The Leopoldina Symposium on "Skeletal Interfaces in Health and Disease" at Paracelsus Medical University (Salzburg, Austria) gathered an interdisciplinary community of young and experienced scientists, to explore how...
Eckstein F, Bangerter N, Wirth W.
Paracelsus Proceedings of Experimental Medicine
MRI has transformed medical imaging and research by enabling detailed 3D visualization of soft tissue anatomy. But it also provides insight into biophysical, histological, and mechanical properties via quantitative MRI relaxometry (qMRI). Cartilage transverse...
Wirth W, Eder J
Numerous studies have presented fully automated techniques for assessing structural osteoarthritis (OA) progression, with recent work increasingly relying on deep learning (DL)-based methods. The objective of this narrative...
Felix Eckstein, Ali Mobasheri, Mikael P Boesen
Osteoarthritis is a debilitating, whole-organ disease that involves all osteoarticular tissues. No effective treatments have yet been approved by the regulatory agencies for modifying the natural history of this disease and its structural progression....
Collins JE, Mesenbrink P, Jin R, Dam EB, Deveza LA, Eckstein F, Guermazi A, L...
Objective: The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) OA Biomarkers Consortium aims to identify, develop, and qualify biomarkers to support drug development in knee osteoarthritis (OA). The project's second phase, the PROGRESS OA study, aims to externally validate prognostic...
Frank W Roemer, Mylène P Jansen, Susanne Maschek, Simon C Mastbergen, Anne-Ka...
ObjectiveTo assess whether change of semiquantitatively magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-defined bone marrow lesions (BMLs) and inflammatory markers is associated with change in quantitatively-assessed cartilage loss in the femorotibial...
Eckstein F, Chaudhari AS, Hunter DJ, Wirth W
Objective: Artificial intelligence (AI-) based automated cartilage analysis demonstrated similar sensitivity to change and only slighty inferior differentiation between radiographic progressors and non-progressors...
Eckstein F, Wirth W, Guermazi A, Roemer F, Nevitt M, Ladel C, Sharma L, Hunte...
Objective: We examined whether the trajectory of femorotibial cartilage loss differs between knees meeting a clinically defined virtual knee replacement (vKR) status based on patient-reported outcomes vs. those with low probability. Design: vKR cases (highest 10...
Trevor B Birmingham, Codie A Primeau, Rebecca F Moyer, Dianne M Bryant, Jinhu...
Background: Medial opening wedge high tibial osteotomy (HTO) is a limb realignment surgery that aims to preserve joint structure and improve clinical outcomes by redistributing ambulatory loads on the knee among patients with knee osteoarthritis...
Wirth W, Eckstein F
Objective: Denuded areas of subchondral bone (dAB) pose a challenge for fully automated segmentation of articular cartilage and subchondral bone in knees with severe radiographic osteoarthritis using convolutional neural...
Wirth W, Herger S, Maschek S, Wisser A, Bieri O, Eckstein F, Mündermann A
Objective: To clinically validate a fully automated cartilage segmentation technique from quantitative double-echo steady-state (qDESS) MRI supporting simultaneous estimation of cartilage T2 and morphology. Here, we test whether laminar...
Felix Eckstein, Alexander S Chaudhari, David J Hunter, Wolfgang Wirth
Objective: A vast array of structural/imaging and clinical endpoints/outcomes are available today to osteoarthritis epidemiologists or trialists. Which assessments are best suited for...
Simon Herger, Wolfgang Wirth, Felix Eckstein, Corina Nüesch, Christian Egloff...
Objective: To investigate the effect of unilateral anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury on cartilage thickness and composition, specifically laminar transverse relaxation time (T2) by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), in younger and older participants and to compare within-person side differences in these...
Felix Eckstein, Anna Wisser, Susanne Maschek, Wolfgang Wirth, Christoph Ladel...
Objective: We here explore whether observed treatment effects of a putative disease-modifying osteoarthritis drug (DMOAD) are greater when cartilage morphometry is performed with...
Wolfgang Wirth, Susanne Maschek, Anna Wisser, Jana Eder, Christian F Baumgart...
Objective: A fully automated laminar cartilage composition (MRI-based T2) analysis method was technically and clinically validated by comparing radiographically normal knees with (CL-JSN) and without contra-lateral joint space narrowing or other sign...
Felix Eckstein, Wolfgang Wirth, Reinhard Putz
Objective: Osteoarthritis (OA) prevalence and incidence varies between women and men, but it is unknown whether this follows sex-specific differences in systemic factors (e.g. hormones) and/or differences in pre-morbid joint anatomy. We recognize tha...
Felix Eckstein, Susanne Maschek, Wolfgang Wirth, Christoph Ladel, Asger Reins...
Objective: Post-treatment cartilage morphometry in the FORWARD study was performed without blinding to MRI acquisition order, involving potential reader bias. Here we...
Felix Eckstein, Thula Cannon Walter-Rittel, Akshay S Chaudhari, Nicholas M Br...
Objective: This expert opinion paper proposes a design for a state-of-the-art magnetic resonance image (MRI) acquisition protocol for knee osteoarthritis clinical trials...
Felix Eckstein, Nicholas M Brisson, Susanne Maschek, Anna Wisser, Francis Ber...
Quantitative Imaging in Medicine and Surgery
Background: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) cartilage transverse relaxation time (T2) reflects cartilage composition, mechanical properties, and early osteoarthritis (OA). T2 analysis requires...
Felix Eckstein, Reinhard Putz, Wolfgang Wirth
Objective: Osteoarthritis prevalence differs between women and men; whether this is the result of differences in pre-morbid articular or peri-articular anatomical morphotypes remains enigmatic. Albeit sex within humans cannot be reduced to female/mal...
Pætur M Holm, Anne Dorte Blankholm, Jakob L Nielsen, Thomas Bandholm, Wolfgan...
Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism
Objective: To investigate the effects of adding strength training to neuromuscular control exercises on thigh tissue composition and muscle properties in people...
Felix Eckstein, Anita E Wluka, Wolfgang Wirth, Flavia Cicuttini
Objective: The first publication on morphometric analysis of articular cartilage using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in 1994 set the scene for a game change in osteoarthritis (OA) research. The current review highlights milestones in...
Wolfgang Wirth, Christoph Ladel, Susanne Maschek, Anna Wisser, Felix Eckstein...
Quantitative measures of cartilage morphology ("cartilage morphometry") extracted from high resolution 3D magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) sequences have been shown to be sensitive to osteoarthritis (OA)-related change and also to treatment intervent...
Kalpana Sharma, Felix Eckstein, Susanne Maschek, Melanie Roth, David J Hunter...
Objective: To study the association of quantitative medial meniscal position measures with radiographic and symptomatic knee osteoarthritis (OA) progression over 2-4 years....
T Schnitzer, M Pueyo, H Deckx, E van der Aar, K Bernard, S Hatch, M van der S...
Objective: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of the anti-catabolic ADAMTS-5 inhibitor S201086/GLPG1972 for the treatment of symptomatic knee osteoarthritis. Design: ROCCELLA (NCT03595618) was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled,...
F Eckstein, S Maschek, A Culvenor, L Sharma, F W Roemer, G N Duda, W Wirth
Objective: Therapy for osteoarthritis ideally aims at preserving structure before radiographic change occurs. This study tests: a) whether longitudinal deterioration in cartilage thickness and composition (transverse relaxation-time T2)...
W Wirth, S Maschek, A C A Marijnissen, A Lalande, F J Blanco, F Berenbaum, L ...
Objective: To investigate the test-retest precision and to report the longitudinal change in cartilage thickness, the percentage of knees with progression and the predictive value of the machine-learning-estimated structural progression score (s-scor...
David Fuerst, Wolfgang Wirth, Martin Gaisberger, David J Hunter, Felix Eckstein
Objective: To study whether layer-specific cartilage transverse relaxation time (T2) and/or longitudinal change is associated with clinically relevant knee osteoarthritis (OA) disease...
Frank W Roemer, Ali Guermazi, Michael J Hannon, Tomoko Fujii, Patrick Omoumi,...
Objective: The present study was undertaken to assess whether the odds for incident radiographic osteoarthritis (OA) differ between men and women in...
David J Hunter, Leticia A Deveza, Jamie E Collins, Elena Losina, Jeffrey N Ka...
Objective: To determine the optimal combination of imaging and biochemical biomarkers for use in the prediction of knee osteoarthritis (OA) progression. Methods: The present study was a nested...
Felix Eckstein, Akshay S Chaudhari, David Fuerst, Martin Gaisberger, Jana Kem...
Objective: To study the longitudinal performance of fully automated cartilage segmentation in knees with radiographic osteoarthritis (OA), we evaluated the sensitivity to...
A Singh, A Venn, L Blizzard, G Jones, J Burgess, V Parameswaran, F Cicuttini,...
Objective: To describe the associations between osteoarthritis (OA)-related biochemical markers (COMP, MMP-3, HA) and MRI-based imaging biomarkers in middle-aged adults over 10-13 years. Methods: Blood serum samples collected...
Xiaoqian Liu, Sarah Robbins, Xia Wang, Sonika Virk, Karen Schuck, Leticia A D...
Introduction: Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) is a highly prevalent disabling joint disease. Intra-articular stem cell therapy is increasingly being used for treating KOA...
Jaclyn A Konopka, Andrea K Finlay, Felix Eckstein, Jason L Dragoo
Knee Surg Sports Traumatol Arthrosc
Purpose: To determine whether the use of an unloading brace can increase the thickness of cartilage regenerate after microfracture surgery. Methods: This is a randomized (1:1) controlled clinical...
Olivier Imbert, Henri Deckx, Katy Bernard, Ellen van der Aar, Maria Pueyo, Na...
Objective: This study aims to assess the efficacy of the anticatabolic 'a disintegrin and metalloproteinase with thrombospondin motif-5' (ADAMTS-5) inhibitor, S201086/GLPG1972, in...
Olivier Imbert, Damien Chimits, Mickaël Guedj, Freddy Lorieau, Katy Bernard, ...
Objectives: Selection of patients with KL radiographic grade 2 and 3 is widely used in clinical trials, but this approach could have some limitations. The purpose of this study performed on Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI)...
Wolfgang Wirth, Felix Eckstein, Jana Kemnitz, Christian Frederik Baumgartner,...
Objective: To evaluate the agreement, accuracy, and longitudinal reproducibility of quantitative cartilage morphometry from 2D U-Net-based automated segmentations for 3T coronal fast...
Felix Eckstein, Marc C Hochberg, Hans Guehring, Flavie Moreau, Victor Ona, As...
Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases
Objective: The FORWARD (FGF-18 Osteoarthritis Randomized Trial with Administration of Repeated Doses) trial assessed efficacy and safety of the potential disease-modifying osteoarthritis drug (DMOAD) sprifermin in patients with...
Hans Guehring, Flavie Moreau, Benjamin Daelken, Christoph Ladel, Oliver Guent...
Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism
Objective: To assess pain outcomes and cartilage thickness change in a subgroup at risk (SAR) of further progression in the FORWARD trial of knee osteoarthritis patients treated with sprifermin. Methods: Patients were randomised 1:1:1:1:1...
W Wirth, F Eckstein, A G Culvenor, M I Hudelmaier, L Stefan Lohmander, R B Fr...
Objective: To compare 5-year change in femorotibial cartilage thickness in 121 young, active adults with an acute anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear randomized to a strategy of structured...
F Eckstein, W Wirth, A G Culvenor
This narrative "Year in Review" highlights a selection of articles published between January 2019 and April 2020, to be presented at the OARSI World Congress 2020 within the field of osteoarthritis (OA) imaging. Articles were obtained from a PubMed s...
Mylène P Jansen, Susanne Maschek, Ronald J van Heerwaarden, Simon C Mastberge...
High tibial osteotomy (HTO) and knee joint distraction (KJD) are joint-preserving treatments that unload the more affected compartment (MAC) in knee osteoarthritis....
C K Kwoh, H Guehring, A Aydemir, M J Hannon, F Eckstein, M C Hochberg
Objective: Evaluate associations between 2-year change in radiographic or quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (qMRI) structural measures, and knee replacement (KR), within a subsequent 7-year follow-up period. Method: Participants...
Felix Eckstein, Jeffrey L Kraines, Aida Aydemir, Wolfgang Wirth, Susanne Masc...
Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases
Objectives: In the phase II FGF-18 Osteoarthritis Randomized Trial with Administration of Repeated Doses (FORWARD) study, sprifermin demonstrated cartilage modification in the...
I P Munugoda, D P Beavers, W Wirth, D A Aitken, R F Loeser, G D Miller, M Lyl...
Objective: Weight loss has beneficial effects on clinical outcomes in knee osteoarthritis (OA), but the mechanism is still unclear. Since meniscus extrusion...
Antje van der Zee-Neuen, Wolfgang Wirth, Katharina Hösl, Jürgen Osterbrink, F...
Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism
Objectives: Osteoarthritis (OA) patients are at increased risk of depression, and low levels of physical activity (PA) are a potential warning sign...
W Wirth, S Maschek, F W Roemer, L Sharma, G N Duda, F Eckstein
Objective: To develop a model of early osteoarthritis, by examining whether radiographically normal knees with contralateral joint space narrowing (JSN), but without...
Marc C Hochberg, Ali Guermazi, Hans Guehring, Aida Aydemir, Stephen Wax, Patr...
Importance: Sprifermin is under investigation as a disease-modifying osteoarthritis drug. Objective: To evaluate the effects of sprifermin on changes in total femorotibial...
W Wirth، D J Hunter، M C Nevitt، L Sharma، C K Kwoh، C Ladel، F Eckstein
Objective: To investigate the predictive and concurrent validity of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based cartilage thickness change between baseline (BL) and year-two (Y2) follow-up (predictive validity) and between Y2 and...
Jan-Ton A D van der Woude, Karen Wiegant, Peter M van Roermund, Femke Intema,...
Objective In end-stage knee osteoarthritis, total knee arthroplasty (TKA) may finally become inevitable. At a relatively young age, this comes with the risk of future revision surgery. Therefore,...
J A D van der Woude, R J van Heerwaarden, S Spruijt, F Eckstein, S Maschek, P...
Background: Knee joint distraction (KJD) is a surgical joint-preserving treatment in which the knee joint is temporarily distracted by an external frame. It is associated with joint tissue...
Felix Eckstein, Robert Boudreau, Zhijie Wang, Michael J Hannon, Jeff Duryea, ...
Objective: To evaluate whether change in fixed-location measures of radiographic joint space width (JSW) and cartilage thickness by MRI predict knee replacement....
D J Hunter، D P Beavers، F Eckstein، A Guermazi، R F Loeser، B J Nicklas، S L...
Purpose: Report the radiographic and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) structural outcomes of an 18-month study of diet-induced weight loss, with or without exercise, compared to exercise alone in older, overweight and obese adults with symptomatic knee osteoarthritis (OA). Methods: Prospective, single-blind, randomized...
F Eckstein, R M Boudreau, Z Wang, M J Hannon, W Wirth, S Cotofana, A Guermazi...
Objective: Knee replacement (KR) represents a clinically important endpoint of knee osteoarthritis (KOA). Here we examine the 4-year trajectory of femoro-tibial cartilage thickness loss prior to KR vs non-replaced controls. Methods: A nested case-con...
K Wiegant, P M van Roermund, F Intema, S Cotofana, F Eckstein, S C Mastbergen...
Background: Treatment of severe osteoarthritis (OA) in relatively young patients is challenging. Although successful, total knee prosthesis has a limited lifespan, with the risk of revision surgery, especially in active young patients. Knee joint...
Stephen P Messier، Shannon L Mihalko، Claudine Legault، Gary D Miller، Barbar...
Importance: Knee osteoarthritis (OA), a common cause of chronic pain and disability, has biomechanical and inflammatory origins and is exacerbated by obesity. Objective: To...
Felix Eckstein, C Kent Kwoh, Robert M Boudreau, Zhijie Wang, Michael J Hannon...
Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases
Objective: Knee osteoarthritis commonly requires joint replacement, substantially reduces quality of life and increases healthcare utilisation and costs. This study aimed to identify whether quantitative measures of articular cartilage structure pred...
Femke Intema, Peter M Van Roermund, Anne C A Marijnissen, Sebastian Cotofana,...
Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases
Background: Modification of joint tissue damage is challenging in late-stage osteoarthritis (OA). Few options are available for treating end-stage knee OA other than joint replacement. Objectives: To examine whether joint distraction can effectively ...
Stephen P Messier، Claudine Legault، Shannon Mihalko، Gary D Miller، Richard ...
Background: Obesity is the most modifiable risk factor, and dietary induced weight loss potentially the best nonpharmacologic intervention to prevent or to slow osteoarthritis (OA) disease progression. We are currently conducting a study to test the hypothesis that intensive weight loss...
![OAC open 1 (1) 2019 [Inaugural Issue]](https://chondrometrics.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/OsteoarthritisAndCartlidge-724x1024.png)
