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Updated: May 20, 2026

Quantitative Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Skeletal Muscle Disease
Published on: December 18, 2016
MR imaging of meniscal tears: comparison of intermediate-weighted FRFSE imaging with intermediate-weighted FSE
Osamu Tokuda1, Yuko Harada, Takaaki Ueda
1Department of Radiology, Yamaguchi University Graduate School of Medicine, 1-1-1 Minamikogushi, Ube, Yamaguchi 755-8505, Japan. tokugama@gmail.com
Purpose:
We compared intermediate-weighted fast spin-echo (IW-FSE) images with intermediate-weighted fast-recovery FSE (IW-FRFSE) images in the diagnosis of meniscal tears.
Materials And Methods:
First, 64 patients were recruited, and the arthroscopic findings (n = 40) and image analysis (n = 19) identified 59 torn menisci with 36 patients. Both the diagnostic performance and image quality in assessing meniscal tears was evaluated for IW-FSE and IW-FRFSE images using a four-point scale. Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) calculation was performed for both sets of images.
Results:
IW-FRFSE image specificity (100 %) for diagnosing the posterior horn of the medial meniscus (MM) tear with reader 1 was significantly higher than that of IW-FSE images (90 %). Mean ratings of the contrast between the lesion and normal signal intensity within the meniscus were significantly higher for the IW-FRFSE image ratings than the IW-FSE images in most meniscal tears. Mean SNRs were significantly higher for IW-FSE images than for IW-FRFSE images (P < 0.05).
Conclusions:
IW-FRFSE imaging can be used as an alternative to the IW-FSE imaging to evaluate meniscal tears.
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