Clinical Study On MRI Of The Early Degeneration Of The Knee Articular Cartilage In Osteoarthritis

Objective To investigate the role of MR imaging in the diagnosis and clinical application of early articular cartilage degeneration with knee osteoarthritis.Methods 40 patients,fulfilled 1995 American Rheumation Association(ARA) criteria,underwent MR scanning before arthroscopy operation.Another 28 patient with OA symptom`s were recruited.These patients underwent MR examination and clinical symptom`s questionair score(including the Western Ontario and Mcmaster University Osteoarthritis Index and Knee Outcome Survey Activities of Daily Living Scale).10 healthy voulenteer entered the study.T1-weighted spin echo,T2-weighted gradient echo,short time inversion recovery(STIR) sequence were perfermed in the saggital planes.T1-weighted geadient echo sequence was performed in the coronal plane.T2-weighted High resolution gradient sequence was performed in the transverse plane.Results With arthroscopic result as golden standard,the sensitivity and specifity of MRI in articular cartilage defect were 96.55% and 88.05%,respectively.The Youden Index was 0.856,closed to 1,the accuracy is high.There are significant difference in the Western Ontario and Mcmaster University Osteoarthritis Index,Knee Outcome Surcey Activities of Daily Living Scale,joint effusion,under-cartilage cyst and bone sclerosis(p<0.05).Conclusion MRI can early display the abnormality of articular cartilage,it has extraordinary use combined with arthroscopy.The MRI grade of articular cartilage degeneration is useful to compensate arthroscopic inadequacy .