Didier Laurent1, Stefan Zbyn2, Vladimir Mlynarik2, Markus Schreiner2, Pavol Szomolanyi2, Nicole Getzmann1, Harry Haber1, Joerg Goldhahn1, Stefan Marlovits3, and Siegfried Trattnig2
1Novartis Institutes fo Biomedical Research, Basel, Switzerland, 2Department of Biomedical Imaging and Image-Guided Therapy, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria, 3Department of Traumatology, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
A comprehensive MRI
approach was implemented to assess cartilage macromolecular composition in
patients with acute cartilage injury. Differences in T2 relaxation and gagCEST asymmetry
values were observed between the defective and adjacent regions in the tibio-femoral
cartilage. Preliminary results indicate that the combination of T2 mapping with
gagCEST scans at 7T may be reproducible and sensitive enough to monitor early
cartilage degeneration, and thus may be considered as a good alternative to
cartilage biopsies in future clinical trials on new therapies aimed at
cartilage regeneration.
