There is a need to detect and quantify early osteoarthritic changes for the development of treatments for osteoarthritis progression. ACL-injured subjects are at an increased risk of developing osteoarthritis, and T2 is sensitive to the structure and composition of cartilage, including osteoarthritic change. This study used a quantitative DESS acquisition to obtain T2 maps in 10 subjects 3-weeks, 3-months, 9-months, and 18-months after ACL reconstruction surgery and 10 controls at matched times. Our results show that T2 cluster analysis was able to detect changes to the ACL-reconstructed cartilage as early as 3-months post-surgery and these differences persisted at 18-months.
This abstract and the presentation materials are available to members only; a login is required.