DTI of Articular Cartilage Can Predict Early Cartilage Damage as Assessed by Histopathology

Jose G. Raya¹, Gerd Melkus², Silvia Adam-Neumair³, Elisabeth Muetzel³, Maximilian F. Reiser³, Peter M. Jakob⁴, Thorsten Kirsch, Christian Glaser

The aim of this work was to investigate the value of DTI of articular cartilage as predictor for early cartilage damage as assessed by histopathology. 41 cartilage-on-bone samples were examined at 17.6T. After MRI samples underwent histology with safranin-O for histopathology assessment of OA (OARSI score). The prognostic value of DTI was analyzed with logistic regression. Performance of DTI was assessed with ROC-curve analysis and the prediction error with 10-flod cross-validation. DTI demonstrated very good prediction performance (Sensitivity=92.9%, Specificity=77.8%) and a correct classification of more than 3 of 4 samples (78%) in a collective with low OARSI score (12).