• Eur Spine J · May 2019

    Quantitative magnetic resonance imaging assessment of lateral atlantoaxial joint meniscoid composition: a validation study.

    • Scott F Farrell, Peter Stanwell, Jon Cornwall, and Peter G Osmotherly.
    • RECOVER Injury Research Centre, NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in Recovery Following Road Traffic Injuries, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. scott.farrell@uq.edu.au.
    • Eur Spine J. 2019 May 1; 28 (5): 1180-1187.

    PurposeLateral atlantoaxial (LAA) joint meniscoid composition may have clinical significance in patients following neck trauma. However, the existing method of radiologically assessing meniscoid composition has an inherent element of subjectivity, which could contribute to measurement variability. The present study sought to investigate the accuracy of two-point Dixon fat/water separation MRI as a quantitative assessment of LAA joint meniscoid composition.MethodsSixteen LAA joint meniscoids were excised from four cadavers (mean [SD] age 79.5 [3.7] years; one female) following cervical spine MRI (two-point Dixon, T1-weighted VIBE and T2-weighted SPACE sequences). Composition of LAA joint meniscoids was undertaken by (1) histological examination by light microscopy, (2) calculation of fat fraction by Dixon MRI (both in-phase/opposed-phase and fat/water methods), and (3) the existing method of considering VIBE and SPACE signal intensities. Analysis was performed using the kappa statistic with linear weighting.ResultsMicroscopy revealed three, five, and eight meniscoids to be composed of adipose, fibroadipose, and fibrous tissues, respectively. Dixon sequence MRI classified 11 of these meniscoids correctly, with 'substantial' level of agreement (In-phase/Opp-phase kappa statistic = 0.78 [95% CI 0.38, 1.17]; fat/water kappa statistic = 0.72 [95% CI 0.32, 1.11]). Level of agreement between microscopy and the VIBE and SPACE method was 'slight' (kappa statistic = 0.02 [95% CI - 0.34, 0.38]).ConclusionsFindings suggest that Dixon fat/water separation MRI may have superior utility in the assessment of LAA joint meniscoid composition than the existing method of considering VIBE and SPACE signal intensities. These slides can be retrieved under Electronic Supplementary Material.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…