Diffusion Tenser Imaging Observation Of The Articular Cartilage In Knee

BackgroundThe knee joint is the most complex human body joints,the normal morphology and function of articular cartilage is an important factor to ensure the movement of the knee joint.Repeated and excessive use of the knee joint can cause the increase of the local load and wear of articular cartilage surface,resulting in the pathological injury of articular cartilage.Magnetic resonance imaging（MRI）scan can display the lesions of articular cartilage,but diagnosis accuracy is lower.Diffusion tensor imaging（DTI）can detect microscopic changes in the microstructure,quantitatively evaluate the fiber direction and links,and accurately display a variety of fibrous tissue damage.ObjectiveDTI with computer software system was used to measure fractional anisotropy（FA）and apparent diffusion coefficient（ADC）values of different parts of knee joint cartilage and osteoarthritis before and after exercise,it was also used to compare the changes of articular cartilage and correlation between the normal group and the patients with different levels of osteoarthritis before and after exercise.The measurement and comparison results were used to provide reference for the diagnosis of articular cartilage diseases such as osteoarthritis.MethodsEighty cases of normal examination and 100 cases of osteoarthritis in the northern area of Henan province who received the lower limb MRI examination during January 2015 to July 2016 were enrolled in study.All the cases were from the Department of Radiology of the First Affiliated Hospital of Xinxiang Medical University.Cases of normal examination have no medical history such as knee surgery,dislocation,fracture,tumor,infection,inflammation and so on.The knee joint cartilage injury in the hospitalized patients can be divided into 0 stages,mild,moderate and severe.All the cases were examined using 3.0 Tsuperconducting magnetic resonance scanner DTI.The original image data were entered into the image processing workstation,3D-DTI software package was used to process the images,FA and ADC values were calculated and compared.SPSS 17 software was used for statistical processing,measurement data were expressed by mean + standard deviation（?）.Results1.There was no significant difference（P > 0.05）between the FA values in corresponding regions of the knee cartilage,the left and right side,the male and female before exercise.The FA values in corresponding regions of the knee cartilage increased after exercise.There were significant differences between the FA values before and after exercise in anterior of lateral tibial plateau（LTP）,the bearing area of lateral femoral condyle（LFC）,the anterior of medial tibial plateau（MTP）,the back of MTP,the bearing area of medial femoral condyle（MFC）,the non bearing area of MFC（P < 0.05,change rate of FA values in anterior of MTP,the back of MTP,the bearing area of MFC,the non bearing area of MFC were higher than these in anterior of LTP,the bearing area of LFC）.2.There was no significant difference（P > 0.05）between the ADC values in corresponding regions of the knee cartilage,the left and right side,the male and female before exercise.The ADC values in corresponding regions of the knee cartilage decreased after exercise.There were significant differences between the ADC values before and after exercise in anterior of LTP,the back of LTP,the bearing area of LFC,the anterior of MTP,the back of MTP,the bearing area of MFC,the non bearing area of MFC（P < 0.05,change rate of ADC values in anterior of MTP,the back of MTP,the bearing area of MFC,the non bearing area of MFC were higher than these in the anterior of LTP,the back of LTP,the bearing area of LFC）.3.FA values in normal,0 stages,mild,moderate and severe groups were（0.512±0.103）、（0.504±0.071）、（0.441±0.050）、（0.375±0.048）、（0.316±0.042）respectively.There were significant differences between the groups except the normal group and 0 stages group（P<0.05）.FA values of surface layer,middle layer and deep layer in every group were different significantly except the normal group and 0 stages group（P<0.05）.4.ADC values in normal,0 stages,mild,moderate and severe groups were（1.967±0.145）10^-3mm²/s、（2.075±0.211）10^-3mm²/s、（2.118± 0.209）10^-3mm²/s、（2.012±0.228）10^-3mm²/s 、（1.913±0.119）10^-3mm²/s respectively.There were significant differences between the severe group and 0 stages group and mild group（P<0.05）.ADC values of surface layer,middle layer and deep layer in every group were not different significantly（P>0.05）.Conclusion1.The ADC and FA values of knee joint cartilage on the DTI can objectively reflect the articular cartilage of the micro changes of structure and function,it is the important reference indicators for diagnosing the knee joint diseases.2.DTI can be used to detect the difference of articular cartilage in different levels and different levels,it can also be used as an effective method for the detection of osteoarthritis.