Purpose
To assess the cartilage status of the knee joints using magnetic resonance imaging
at least 2 years after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) in young adult
men.
Methods
Thirty young male patients with unilateral ACLR and 15 age-matched and body mass index–matched
healthy men (controls) participated in this study. All participants underwent quantitative
magnetic resonance imaging scans. Three-dimensional dual-echo steady-state sagittal
images were segmented using solid model software to calculate the mean cartilage thickness,
and multi-echo sagittal images were segmented with Siemens software (Siemens, Erlangen,
Germany) to determine the T2 relaxation time of each cartilage plate.
Results
There was no statistically significant difference in the mean thickness of each cartilage
plate between the ACLR and control groups (P = .9616 for lateral femoral cartilage, P = .5962 for lateral tibial cartilage, P = .9328 for patellar cartilage, P = .9712 for trochlear cartilage, P = .4408 for medial femoral cartilage, and P = .1933 for medial tibial cartilage). The ACLR group had significantly higher T2 values
than the control group in the lateral femoral cartilage (P < .001), lateral tibia (P = .0011), trochlea (P = .0028), medial femur (P < .001), and medial tibia (P < .001). In addition, the patella showed no difference in T2 values between the 2
groups (P = .2152). The medial compartment cartilage showed a much higher percentage change in
cartilage T2 values in the ACLR group.
Conclusions
Although no difference in cartilage thickness was detected between the ACLR group
and the control group, the mean T2 relaxation time in the ACLR patients was significantly
longer than that in control subjects.
Level of Evidence
Level III, retrospective comparative study.
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Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
September 17,
2013
Received:
May 16,
2013
Footnotes
The authors report the following source of funding: This project was subsidized by the 973 Project (No. 2009CB930000) from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China and the Nano project of Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission (1052nm03701).
Identification
Copyright
© 2013 Arthroscopy Association of North America. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
