Spatially-localized correlation of MRI and mechanical stiffness to assess cartilage integrity in the human tibial plateau

Osteoarthritis is a painful degenerative joint disease affecting millions of people in the U.S. The pathogenesis of articular cartilage disease is characterized by softening of cartilage and loss and disruption of constituent macromolecules including proteoglycans and collagen. In current orthopaedic surgical practice, the gold standard for evaluating articular cartilage integrity is the use of a hand probe during arthroscopy. Mechanical probing, however, is invasive and requires anesthesia. Tightly confined areas of the articular surface can be difficult to reach and assess, and manual probing provides a subjective rather than a quantitative assessment of cartilage mechanical integrity. This thesis was motivated by the desire for a noninvasive and nondestructive means to map the variation in mechanical stiffness of an articular surface. Such a method could potentially have application to guiding surgeons during procedures and quantitatively assessing the efficacy of medical and surgical therapies. It could also potentially provide patient-specific, in vivo tissue mechanical property data for surgical simulation and preoperative procedure planning. The macromolecule glycosaminoglycan (GAG) is a significant determinant of cartilage stiffness. GAG content can be assessed noninvasively in vivo and in vitro by an MRI-based technique known as delayed gadolinium-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging of cartilage (dGEMRIC), which measures the MRI parameter TI after equilibration with the ionic contrast agent Gd(DTPA)2-. With dGEMRIC, TlGd serves as an index of GAG content: we therefore examined whether cartilage stiffness could be related to dGEMRIC-measured TlGd in samples of human tibial plateaus.

Department dc:contributor.department

Harvard University--MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2002

Author dc:creator

• Samosky, Joseph T. (Joseph Thomas)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• W. Eric L. Grimson.

• Harvard University--MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/31105

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/31105