Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Jul 24.
doi: 10.1007/s10334-025-01280-0. Online ahead of print.

Addressing fatty tissue in quantitative susceptibility mapping of human knee cartilage

Cornelia Säll  1 , Emelie Lind  1   2 , Emma Einarsson  1   3 , Aleksandra Turkiewicz  4 , Martin Englund  4 , Pernilla Peterson  5   6
Affiliations

Addressing fatty tissue in quantitative susceptibility mapping of human knee cartilage

Cornelia Säll et al. MAGMA. .

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the effects of excluding fatty tissue in QSM of human knee cartilage.

Materials and methods: Gradient echo images from 18 knee-healthy volunteers were acquired, from which chemical shift corrected field perturbation maps were calculated. Based on these, QSM maps were reconstructed using morphology enabled dipole inversion and one of three masking alternatives: (1) excluding no tissue, (2) excluding bone marrow, and (3) excluding all fatty tissues. The slope of a linear regression [ppm/%] between susceptibility values and the relative distance from the bone surfaces was used as a measurement of contrast between cartilage layers. The average differences in slopes between methods are reported with 95% confidence intervals.

Results: The expected susceptibility differences between cartilage layers from literature were observed for all tested reconstruction techniques. However, smaller slopes (average difference (confidence interval)) were detected when either all fatty tissue (- 0.090 (- 0.121, - 0.059) ppm/%) or bone marrow (- 0.088 (- 0.121, - 0.055) ppm/%) was excluded from reconstruction.

Discussion: All tested methods result in adequate image quality in QSM of knee cartilage. However, exclusion of fatty tissue decreased the susceptibility contrast between cartilage layers. Assuming that phase contributions from chemical shift are addressed, inclusion of fatty tissue may be preferable.

Keywords: Cartilage; Fatty tissue; Osteoarthritis; QSM.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Conflicts of interest: The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose. Ethics approval: This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority. Informed consent: Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

References

    1. GBD 2015 Disease and Injury Incidence and Prevalence Collaborators (2016) Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability for 310 diseases and injuries, 1990–2015: a systematic analysis for the global burden of disease study 2015. Lancet 388(10053):1545–1602
    1. Hunter DJ, Bierma-Zeinstra S (2019) Osteoarthritis Lancet 393(10182):1745–1759 - PubMed
    1. Primorac D, Molnar V, Rod E, Jeleč Ž, Čukelj F, Matišic´ V, Vrdoljak T, Hudetz D, Hajsok H, Borić I (2020) Knee osteoarthritis: a review of pathogenesis and state-of-the-art non-operative therapeutic considerations. Genes (Basel) 11(8):854
    1. Roemer FW, Demehri S, Omoumi P, Link TM, Kijowski R, Saarakkala S (2020) State of the art: imaging of osteoarthritis-revised 2020. Radiology 296(1):5–21 - PubMed
    1. Dymerska B, Bohndorf K, Schennach P, Rauscher A, Trattnig S, Robinson SD (2018) In vivo phase imaging of human epiphyseal cartilage at 7 T. Magn Reson Med 79(4):2149–2155 - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources