Screening for avascular necrosis of the hip with rapid MRI: Preliminary experience

Purpose: The purpose of this work was to compare rapidly acquired MR images with routinely employed SE and turbo SE (TSE) images in screening for hip avascular necrosis (AVN). Method: Twelve patients with findings suspicious for radiographically occul t AVN of one or both hips were studied with our routine screening protocol (imaging time >7 min) and similarly weighted, rapidly acquired MR sequences (imaging time <1 min). Results: The rapidly acquired MR images were judged to be similar to the ro utine protocol in demonstrating marrow edema, irregular lines within the fe moral head characteristic of AVN, and osteoarthritis. Conclusion: The rapidly acquired MR sequences that we studied reliably reve aled the presence or absence of AVN, marrow edema, and osteoarthritis of th e hip in our sample population when compared with SE and TSE sequences that we routinely perform. Further investigation of rapidly acquired MR sequenc es is warranted, as imaging time may be dramatically reduced and patient th roughput increased.