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 may improve our understanding of sex-specific mechanisms in knee OA development. The objective of this … Continued
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 healthy controls (HEA). Method: Baseline and 2-year follow-up MRIs were acquired in both knees of 78 participants (ACL-injured 2-10 years prior, 20-30 years, n = 20; 40-60 years, … Continued
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 and response biomarkers identified in the earlier phase (phase 1). Here we present results assessing … Continued
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 joint (FTJ) in knees with radiographic osteoarthritis (OA) over 24 months.DesignParticipants were included from the IMI-APPROACH and the Osteoarthritis Initiative FNIH studies. Semiquantitative MRI assessment was performed … Continued
Objective: Artificial intelligence (AI-) based automated cartilage analysis demonstrated similar sensitivity to change and only slighty inferior differentiation between radiographic progressors and non-progressors compared with manual segmentation. However, this finding was based on DESS MRI from the Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI), whereas the vast majority of multicenter clinical trials rely on T1-weighted gradient echo (e.g. FLASH). Here … Continued
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 % of probabilities for having surgical KR) were selected using knee pain and quality of life criteria, developed from knees with … Continued
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 networks (CNNs). Here we propose an automated post-processing relying on a selection-based multi-atlas registration for reconstructing the total area of subchondral bone (tAB) to overcome this issue. … Continued
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 (superficial and deep layer) T2 results from convolutional neural network (CNN) segmentations are consistent with those from manual expert segmentations. Materials and methods: The 3D qDESS sequence was … Continued
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 parameters between ACL-injured and healthy controls. Design: Quantitative double-echo steady-state 3 Tesla MRI-sequences were acquired in … Continued
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…