Osteoarthritis and Cartilage Open (Dec 2024)

Association of cartilage T1ρ and T2 relaxation time measurement with hip osteoarthritis progression: A 5-year longitudinal study using voxel-based relaxometry and Z-score normalization

  • Rafeek Thahakoya,
  • Koren E. Roach,
  • Misung Han,
  • Rupsa Bhattacharjee,
  • Fei Jiang,
  • Johanna Luitjens,
  • Emma Bahroos,
  • Valentina Pedoia,
  • Richard B. Souza,
  • Sharmila Majumdar

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 6, no. 4
p. 100538

Abstract

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Objective: To study the longitudinal changes of cartilage T1ρ and T2 relaxation time measurements in hip-OA patients. Methods: A calibration study compared two scanner data, Scanner-1 (GE Discovery MR750 3.0T) with unilateral acquisition protocol and Scanner-2 (GE Signa Premier 3.0T) with bilateral acquisition protocol, using nine subjects(average age ​= ​40.33 ​± ​13.53 years, 5 females), including one hip-OA subject. Quantified parameters from the Scanner-2 were adjusted using voxel-based relaxometry(VBR) and Z-score normalization to reduce the inter-scanner variability. Eighteen hip-OA Subjects (age ​= ​53.11 ​± ​14.96 years, 12 females) were recruited to the longitudinal variability study from 2016, comprising five assessments at 1-year intervals. Baseline to 3rd-year data used unilateral acquisition with Scanner-1, while 4th-year data used bilateral acquisition with Scanner-2. A linear mixed-effects model(LME) assessed trajectory analyses, with acquisition year, age, sex, body mass index(BMI), and Kellgren-Lawrence(KL) score as predictor variables and cartilage mean T1ρ and T2 values as outcomes. Results: VBR analysis after Z-score normalization showed that only a few of the whole cartilage voxels had significant differences in T1ρ(femur-2.36 ​% and acetabular-3.23 ​%) and T2 (femur-2.30 ​% and acetabular-2.94 ​%) values between the scanners. The LME analysis showed that the BMI predictor variable was significantly correlated with the femur T1ρ (p ​< ​0.0001) and T2 (p ​< ​0.0001) and acetabular T1ρ (p ​< ​0.0001) and T2 (p ​< ​0.0001) cartilage region. Conclusion: The calibration study demonstrated the effectiveness of VBR and Z-score normalization in reducing inter-scanner variability. The longitudinal study revealed a significant correlation between T1ρ and T2 values of the cartilage and BMI; also the T1ρ and T2 values increased over time in some of the cartilage subregions.

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