Experimental assessment by high frequency ultrasound of articular cartilage thickness and osteoarthritic changes

Osteoarthritis (OA) is characterized by progressive loss of articular cartilage in the involved joint. Accurate, reproducible measurement of the thickness of the cartilage in vivo, however, is difficult. Because development of an ultrasonic imaging device for intraarticular use is feasible and would permit acquisition of information that could complement the assessment of articular cartilage made at arthroscopy, we evaluated the efficacy of high frequency ultrasound in assessing the thickness and subsurface characteristics of normal and OA cartilage.

Blocks of human femoral cartilage and subchondral bone and chips of cartilage alone were examined in vitro with an experimental 25 MHz pulse-echo ultrasound scanner that portrayed cross sections of the cartilage as B-mode images. The gross and histologic appearance of the articular surface was used to identify specimens of unblemished, normal cartilage and OA cartilage. The speed of sound in cartilage, determined from measurements of cartilage thickness and sound transmission, was related to its biochemical composition.

The speed of sound in normal cartilage (1658 +/- 185 m/s, n = 27) was greater than that in OA cartilage (1581 +/- 148 m/s, n = 40, p = 0.06), but was not related to the cartilage water content or the concentration of uronic acid or hydroxyproline. Images of normal cartilage showed a smooth echo band at the tissue surface with a hypoechoic matrix; in scans of fibrillated cartilage the width of this band was proportional to the depth of fibrillation (r = 0.78). Ultrasonic and histologic measurements of OA cartilage thickness were closely correlated (r = 0.87) and the mean coefficient of variation for repeated measurements was 2%.

High frequency ultrasonic images obtained in vitro provide highly accurate and reproducible measurements of the thickness and subsurface characteristics of normal and OA articular cartilage.