Jiang Du1,
Won C. Bae1, Sheronda Statum1, Renie Biswas1,
Michael Carl2, Atsushi Takahashi2, Christine B. Chung1,
Graeme M. Bydder1
1Radiology, University of California,
San Diego, CA, United States; 2Global Applied Science Laboratory,
GE Healthcare Technologies, Menlo Park, CA, United States
The
zone of calcified cartilage (ZCC) is a highly modified mineralized region of
articular cartilage that forms an important interface between cartilage and
bone. It is a region that may change dramatically in osteoarthritis (OA).
However, all current clinical sequences show a signal void for the ZCC
because of its short T2 and thin structure. Here we present 3D UTE sequences
for ZCC imaging using three contrast mechanisms: dual echo acquisition and
echo subtraction, single adiabatic inversion recovery (SIR) and dual
inversion recovery (DIR). The feasibility of these techniques was tested on
five cadaveric patellae on a clinical 3T scanner.