Patients, who benefit from cartilage repair surgery, need a non-invasive and high-quality imaging modality to assess the structure and the biochemical property of the repair tissue. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which provides better tissue contrast and high spatial resolution, is currently the best imaging technique available for the assessment of articular cartilage pathologies. In addition to MR morphology sequences, that allow cartilage lesions detection as well as repair tissue evaluation from the articular surface of the joint to the bone-cartilage interface, MRI mapping techniques help to assess the technical success of the procedure of cartilage repair and the state of cartilage healing, as well the identification of possible complications after cartilage repair surgery. MRI mapping techniques such as T1, T2 and T2* mapping help to assess the biochemical property of the repair tissue using delayed gadolinium-enhanced MRI of cartilage (dGEMRIC) to assess the proteoglycan content and T2/T1rho (T1ρ) mapping to assess the collagen content and the fiber matrix arrangement. This chapter gives an overview about the MRI mapping techniques used for Cartilage Repair Tissue Follow-up.
Part of the book: Cartilage Repair and Regeneration