Goetz Hannes Welsch1,2, Sebastian Apprich1,
Tallal Charles Mamisch3, Marius Mayerhoefer1, Stefan
Zbyn1, Siegfried Trattnig1
1MR Center, Department of Radiology,
Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria; 2Department of
Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery, University Hospital of Erlangen, Erlangen,
Germany; 3Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of Basel,
Basel, Switzerland
The
aim of the present initial study was to assess T2 and T2* relaxation time
values of patella cartilage in healthy volunteers using three different coils
(i) eight-channel knee coil; ii) eight-channel multi-purpose coil; iii)
surface coil) at 3.0 Tesla MRI. The mean as well as the zonal T2 and T2*
values revealed, in most of the cases, significant differences in between the
respective coils. These differences were a little less pronounced in the T2*
measurements, compared to the T2 evaluations. The present results demonstrate
that biochemical T2 and T2* mapping is highly dependent on the utilized coil.