Abstract des Autors

The objective of this study was the quantification of cartilage loss in the femorotibial joint with MR-chondrocrassometry and the assessment of its precision in the presence of severe degenerative changes. In six patients with advanced stages of gonarthrosis (before total knee arthroplasty) coronal MR images of tile tibial cartilage were acquired (FLASH water-excitation-sequence ((17/6.6/25ø), resolution = 1.2 x 0.3 x 0.3 mm**3, imaging time = 6'19 min), the measurement being repeated between once and three times. After interactive segmentation and 3D reconstruction, the cartilage volume was calculated. In the medial tibial plateau a cartilage loss of up to 58% (-2.4 SD) was observed relative to a sex-matched normal reference group, and up to 43% (-2.3 SD) in the lateral plateau. The reproducibility of the measurements was 5.9% (CV%) medially and 3.2% laterally. With this method it is possible to measure cartilage loss in gonarthrosis noninvasively and with high precision. Verf.-Referat