Multiplanar reconstruction recovers morphological cartilage assessment reproducibility from maloriented coronal MRI...

Area of Science:

• Orthopedics
• Radiology
• Medical Imaging

Background:

• Accurate morphometric analysis of knee cartilage is crucial for diagnosing and monitoring conditions like osteoarthritis.
• Coronal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can suffer from malorientation due to femoral condyle positioning.
• Image orientation errors can impact the precision of cartilage measurements.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of multiplanar reconstruction (MPR) on the precision of weight-bearing medial femoral cartilage (cMF) and lateral femoral cartilage (cLF) morphometry.
• To assess if MPR can correct precision losses in maloriented coronal MR images of the knee.

Main Methods:

• Twenty knee MR images were acquired using a 1.0T extremity imager with a 3D spoiled gradient recalled echo sequence.
• Scans were performed in double bull's-eye orientation and with 5° internal and external rotation (maloriented).
• MPR was applied to maloriented scans; cartilage segmentation and morphometric precision (bone area, cartilage volume, thickness) were evaluated.

Main Results:

• Test-retest precision in correctly oriented scans was 1.1% for bone area and 4.1% for cartilage volume.
• Maloriented images showed higher precision errors (1.7-4.8%) compared to double bull's-eye orientation.
• MPR generally improved precision in maloriented scans (1.7-5.6% for internal rotation, 1.2-3.5% for external rotation).

Conclusions:

• Acquisition of maloriented coronal MR images reduces the precision of femoral cartilage morphometry.
• Multiplanar reconstruction effectively corrects malorientation, recovering precision losses in cartilage measurements.
• The rotational and compartmental dependency of measurement precision should be considered.