Daniel James Clark1, Guang Jia1,
Maria Isabel Menendez2, Seongjin Choi1, Craig James Miller,
Steffen Sammet1, David C. Flanigan3, Alicia Louise
Bertone2, Michael V. Knopp1
1Radiology, College of Medicine, The
Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States; 2Veterinary
Clinical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, The Ohio State University,
Columbus, OH, United States; 3Orthopedics, OSU Sports Medicine
Center, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States
Currently,
there is no established human sized model for cartilage regeneration. This study is the first to assess the time
course of healing in vivo using
quantitative MRI in live ponies with cartilage thicknesses comparable to
humans in a 3T clinical scanner. We use several innovative, quantitative
methods including delayed contrast-enhanced MRI of cartilage (dGEMRIC), dynamic
contrast-enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI), and T2 mapping. The results of this study strongly suggest
that in vivo quantitative MRI can
be used to monitor cartilage healing and characterize the physiological state
of repaired tissue.