[Experimental and clinical studies on the relevance of proton spin tomography in patients with coxarthrosis]

We examined 2 in formalin fixed hip specimens from a corpse, 27 patients with coxarthrosis and 3 healthy young volunteers with MRT concerning the illustration of the hip joint and pathological changes by coxarthrosis. Specimen of the femoral head after endoprosthetic operation could be achieved in 18 cases for comparison with MRT. All pathological alterations as cartilage alterations, sclerosis, cysts, effusion, edema, fibrosis were figured with high sensitivity. Cartilage was figured much better by gradient echo sequence with short echo time than by spin echo sequence. Gradient echo sequence made it possible to figure and quantify thinning of cartilage with high sensitivity. Both sequences showed artefacts because of the chemical shift in the area of the cartilage-bone boundary, which impaired especially the judgement of cartilage by spin echo sequence. Gradient echo sequence allowed because of the phase-contrast effect the distinction of hematopoietic and fatty bone marrow and possibly the delineation of bone marrow edema.