Megan E. Bowers1, Ashley Williams1, Lisa A. Fortier2, Albert C. Chen3, Robert L. Sah3, Constance R. Chu1
1Cartilage Restoration Center, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States; 2College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States; 3Cartilage Tissue Engineering Lab, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States
Clinical strategies to evaluate repaired articular cartilage are needed. This studys aim was to assess T2 mapping as a surrogate for invasive and destructive tissue analysis in an equine model of articular cartilage defects repaired with either concentrated bone marrow aspirate (CBMA) or microfracture (MFx) after one year of healing. Mechanical deficits in repair tissue compared to control cartilage corresponded to significant differences in full-thickness T2 values. This result suggests that as cartilage repair techniques are translated into the human clinical setting, T2 mapping may be useful as a non-invasive surrogate for the assessment of repair tissues functional integrity.