Morphological and Quantitative Evaluation of Meniscal Calcifications by Novel 2D IR and 3D UTE MR Techniques

Patrick Omoumi^1,2, Eric S. Diaz¹, Jiang Du¹, Sheronda S. Statum¹, Won C. Bae¹, Graeme Bydder¹, Christine B. Chung¹

Meniscal calcifications are frequent and likely alter the normal biomechanics of the meniscus. Although MR imaging is the non-invasive technique of choice for the evaluation of meniscal pathology, it does not allow the facile visualization of meniscal calcifications. This is due to a lack of contrast (both calcifications and menisci have relatively short T2 relaxation times), and a lack of saptial rsolution with standard clinical sequences. We describe novel MR imaging techniques based on 2D-UTE inversion recovery and 3D-UTE data acquisition to address these factors. We assessed the ability of these sequences to allow the visualization, characterization and quantitative evaluation of meniscal calcifications.