Conny Strm1, Jrgen Strinnholm1, Volker Otten2, Jn Hauksson1, Morten Bruvold3, Ulrike Blume3, Chiel den Harder3, Clemens Bos3
1Department of Radiology, University of Ume, Ume, Sweden; 2Department of Orthopedy, University of Ume, Ume, Sweden; 3Philips Healthcare, Best, Netherlands
Wear and tear of orthopedic implants is seen in many patients approximately fifteen years after intervention. Clarification of the extent of resulting complications is crucial to evaluate to what extent implant replacement is necessary. CT provides information about bone density, bone dimensions and implant dimensions but not about tumor-like osteolytic tissue. MR covers soft tissue imaging but suffers from artifacts near metal. Recently, Slice-Encoding for Metal Artifact Correction (SEMAC) was introduced to counteract these artifacts. This work shows that, quite unlike conventional sequences, SEMAC can image osteolysis and enables tissue evaluation very close to metal implants, thus improving diagnosis quality.