High resolution morphologic imaging and T2 mapping of cartilage at 7 Tesla: comparison of cartilage repair patients and healthy controls

Our objective was to use 7 T MRI to compare cartilage morphology (thickness) and collagen composition (T2 values) in cartilage repair patients and healthy controls. We scanned the knees of 11 cartilage repair patients and 11 controls on a 7 T MRI scanner using a high-resolution, gradient-echo sequence to measure cartilage thickness and a multi-echo spin-echo sequence to measure cartilage T2 values. We used two-tailed t tests to compare cartilage thickness and T2 values in: repair tissue (RT) versus adjacent cartilage (AC); RT versus healthy control cartilage (HC); AC versus HC. Mean thickness in RT, AC, HC were: 2.2 +/- A 1.4, 3.6 +/- A 1.1, 3.3 +/- A 0.7 mm. Differences in thickness between RT-AC (p = 0.01) and RT-HC (p = 0.02) were significant, but not AC-HC (p = 0.45). Mean T2 values in RT, AC, HC were: 51.6 +/- A 7.6, 40.0 +/- A 4.7, 45.9 +/- A 3.7 ms. Differences in T2 values between RT-AC (p = 0.0005), RT-HC (p = 0.04), and AC-HC (p = 0.004) were significant. 7 T MRI allows detection of differences in morphology and collagen architecture in: (1) cartilage repair tissue compared to adjacent cartilage and (2) cartilage repair tissue compared to cartilage from healthy controls. Although cartilage adjacent to repair tissue may be normal in thickness, it can demonstrate altered collagen composition.