RESEARCH ARTICLE
One Screening Magnetic Resonance Imaging Sequence in Evaluation of Chondral and Meniscal Lesions of the Knee − A Pilot Study
Paavo-Ilari Kuikka*, 1, Ole M Böstman2, Martti J Kiuru1, 3, 4, Sari T Salminen5, Sakari Mikkola3, Harri K Pihlajamäki1, 6
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2008Volume: 2
First Page: 19
Last Page: 22
Publisher ID: TOORTHJ-2-19
DOI: 10.2174/1874325000802010019
Article History:
Received Date: 17/1/2008Revision Received Date: 6/2/2007
Acceptance Date: 8/2/2008
Electronic publication date: 15/2/2008
Collection year: 2008
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/) which permits unrestrictive use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
This prospective study aimed to evaluate if chondral and meniscal lesions in symptomatic knees of osteoarthritis patients can be reliably identified using only one sagittal dual-echo MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) sequence. MRI was performed on 13 patients after knee arthroscopy due to knee pain and clinically suspected osteoarthritis using a 1.5-Tesla scanner with knee coil and a sagittal dual-echo turbo spin-echo PD (Proton Density)- and T2-weighted sequence. The MRI and arthroscopic findings were then compared. Of 65 articular surfaces, 47 were damaged. For articular cartilage lesions, the overall sensitivity of MRI was 46.8%, specificity 72.2%, and diagnostic accuracy 53.9%, and for meniscal ruptures 81.2%, 66.7%, and 73.1%, respectively. The present study showed that the reliability of screening MRI of knees using only one sagittal dual-echo sequence does not suffice for diagnosis of chondral or meniscal lesions, and should therefore not replace routine knee MRI or diagnostic arthroscopy.
