• Megan S Cromer, Sheryl L Foster, Roger M Bourne, Marlene Fransen, Roger Fulton, and Shih-Chang Wang.
• Department of Radiology, Westmead Hospital, Sydney, Australia. megan.cromer@swahs.health.nsw.gov.au
• J Magn Reson Imaging. 2013 Jul 1; 38 (1): 245-50.

PurposeTo assess the utility of knee cartilage volumetry using an unspoiled fat-suppressed 3D fast gradient echo (FGRE) sequence at 3T.Materials And MethodsSagittal magnetic resonance (MR) images were obtained with an unspoiled fat-suppressed 3D FGRE sequence in eight porcine knees. Manual segmentation was used to derive the cartilage volume. This volume was compared to a volume measurement of cartilage scraping specimens obtained by water displacement. Imaging was repeated five times in four of the knees to assess interscan volume measurement reproducibility and calculate precision error. A single 3D dataset was manually segmented five times at weekly intervals to assess intraobserver volume measurement reproducibility.ResultsTotal cartilage volume obtained from MRI and water displacement correlated well (r = 0.75). The interscan reproducibility of total volume measurements, expressed as the coefficient of variation (CV), was 4.2%, and the precision error (root mean square [RMS] CV) was 4.1%. The CV of intraobserver estimates of total cartilage volume by MRI was 3.6%.ConclusionInterscan reproducibility of quantification of total cartilage volume and reproducibility of the manual segmentation technique were both high (>95%). Accurate and reproducible cartilage volumetry can be obtained by using a clinical unspoiled fat-suppressed 3D FGRE acquired at 3T MRI.Copyright © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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