CARTILAGE THICKNESS MEASUREMENT IN MAGNETIC-RESONANCE-IMAGING

To assess the accuracy of cartilage thickness measurements in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), we compared data obtained by cartilage thick ness measurements in MRI with corresponding histological sections of 1 4 human proximal tibial articular surfaces. Each proximal tibial artic ular surface was cut into five medial and lateral slices and each of t hese slices was divided into three sectors providing 420 sectors, 406 of which were evaluated in our study. The overall correlation coeffici ent (r) was 0.96. Topographical differences were found. The lowest cor relation coefficient in our series was observed in the anterior part o f the medial tibial plateau (r=0.88). Cartilage thickness measurements in MRI were more accurate in cartilage thicker than 2 mm (r = 0.94) t han in thinner cartilage layers (r = 0.73). There were no significant differences in cartilage thickness measurements in different grades of osteoarthritis. However, the mean percentage difference between carti lage thickness in MRI and histology was about 10% in our series.