T1ρ-mapping for assessing knee joint cartilage in children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis - feasibility and
Anouk M Barendregt1,2, Valentina Mazzoli3, J Merlijn van den Berg4
1Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Amsterdam University Medical Centers, location AMC, Meibergdreef 9, Room G1-226, 1105 AZ, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. a.m.barendregt@amsterdamumc.nl.
Background:
Ongoing arthritis in children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) can result in cartilage damage.
Objective:
To study the feasibility and repeatability of T1ρ for assessing knee cartilage in JIA and also to describe T1ρ values and study correlation between T1ρ and conventional MRI scores for disease activity.
Materials And Methods:
Thirteen children with JIA or suspected JIA underwent 3-tesla (T) knee MRI that included conventional sequences and a T1ρ sequence. Segmentation of knee cartilage was carried out on T1ρ images. We used intraclass correlation coefficient to study the repeatability of segmentation in a subset of five children. We used the juvenile arthritis MRI scoring system to discriminate inflamed from non-inflamed knees. The Mann-Whitney U and Spearman correlation compared T1ρ between children with and without arthritis on MRI and correlated T1ρ with the juvenile arthritis MRI score.
Results:
All children successfully completed the MRI examination. No images were excluded because of poor quality. Repeatability of T1ρ measurement had an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.99 (P<0.001). We observed no structural cartilage damage and found no differences in T1ρ between children with (n=7) and without (n=6) inflamed knees (37.8 ms vs. 31.7 ms, P=0.20). However, we observed a moderate correlation between T1ρ values and the juvenile arthritis MRI synovitis score (r=0.59, P=0.04).
Conclusion:
This pilot study suggests that T1ρ is a feasible and repeatable quantitative imaging technique in children. T1ρ values were associated with the juvenile arthritis MRI synovitis score.
