DQF-MT MRI of connective tissues: application to tendon and muscle

Slawomir Kusmia1, Uzi Eliav2, Gil Navon2, Geneviève Guillot3
1IR4M UMR8081 CNRS Univ Paris-Sud, Le Kremlin Bicetre, France
2School of Chemistry, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
3IR4M UMR8081 Univ Paris-Sud, Orsay, France

Tóm tắt

The sequence combining DQF (double quantum filtering) with magnetisation transfer (DQF-MT) was tested as an alternative to the DQF sequence for characterising tendon and muscle by MR imaging. DQF-MT images of tendon–muscle phantoms were obtained at 4.7 T using ultra-short time to echo (UTE) methods in order to alleviate the loss of SNR due to the short T2 of the tissues. Two different sampling schemes of the k-space, Cartesian or radial, were employed. In vivo images of the human ankle on a clinical 1.5 T scanner are also presented. Parameters providing optimal tendon signal as well as optimal contrast between this tissue and muscle were determined. Two sets of parameters resulting in different contrasts between the tissues were found. For the first set (short creation time τ = 10 μs and magnetisation exchange time t LM = 100 ms), DQF-MT signals in muscle and tendon were detected, with that of the tendon being the larger one. For the second set (long creation time τ = 750 μs and magnetisation exchange time 10 μs < t LM < 100 ms), the DQF-MT signal was detected only in the tendon, and the decay of the double quantum coherence was slower than that observed for the first one, which allowed us to acquire DQF-MT MR images on a clinical 1.5 T MR scanner with minimal software interventions. In favourable conditions, the DQF-MT signal in the tendon could represent up to 10 % of the single-quantum signal. Dipolar interaction within macromolecules such as collagen and myosin is at the origin of the DQF-MT signal observed in the first parameter set. This should enable the detection of muscle fibrosis.

Tài liệu tham khảo

Mighelsen C, Berendsen HJC (1973) Proton exchange and molecular orientation of water in hydrated collagen fibers. An NMR study of H2O and D2O. J Chem Phys 59:296–305 Henkelman RM, Stanisz GJ, Kim JK, Bronskill MJ (1994) Anisotropy of NMR properties of tissues. Magn Reson Med 32:592–601 Renou JP, Bonnet M, Bielicki G, Rochdi A, Gatellier P (1994) NMR study of collagen-water interactions. Biopolymers 34:1615–1626 Eliav U, Navon G (1999) A study of dipolar interactions and dynamic processes of water molecules in tendon by 1H and 2H homonuclear and heteronuclear multiple-quantum-filtered NMR spectroscopy. J Magn Reson 137:295–310 Gold GE, Pauly JM, Macovsky A, Herfkens RJ (1995) MR spectroscopic imaging of collagen: tendons and knee menisci. Magn Reson Med 34:647–654 Tyler DJ, Robson MD, Henkelman RM, Young IR, Bydder GM (2007) Magnetic resonance imaging with ultrashort TE (UTE) pulse sequence: technical considerations. J Magn Reson Imaging 25:279–289 Benjamin M, Bydder GM (2007) Magnetic resonance imaging of entheses using ultrashort TE (UTE) pulse sequence. J Magn Reson Imaging 25:381–389 Henkelman RM, Huang X, Xiang Q-S, Stanisz GJ, Swanson SD, Bronskill MJ (1993) Quantitative interpretation of magnetization transfer. Magn Reson Med 29:759–766 Gray ML, Burstein D, Lesperance LM, Gehrke LM (1995) Magnetization transfer in cartilage and its constituent macromolecules. Magn Reson Med 34:319–325 Peterfy CG, Majumdar S, Lang P, van Dijke CF, Sack K, Genant HK (1994) MR imaging of the arthritic knee: improved discrimination of cartilage, synovium, and effusion with pulsed saturation transfer and fat: suppressed T1-weighted sequences. Radiology 191:413–419 Xia Y, Farquhar T, Burton-Wurster N, Ray E, Jelinski L (1994) Diffusion and relaxation mapping of cartilage-bone plugs and excised disk using microscopic magnetic resonance imaging. Magn Reson Med 31:273–282 Grenier D, Pascui O, Briguet A (2000) Dipolar contrast for dense tissues imaging. J Magn Reson 147:353–356 Tsoref L, Shinar H, Seo Y, Eliav U, Navon G (1998) Proton double-quantum filtered MRI: a new method for imaging ordered tissues. Magn Reson Med 40:720–726 Tsoref L, Eliav U, Seo Y, Shinar H, Navon G (2000) Slice-selective proton double quantum filtered MRI of joint connective tissues. J Magn Reson Imaging 11:336–341 Aletras AH, Tsoref L, Navon G (2000) In vivo 1H double quantum filtered MRI of the human wrist and ankle. Magn Reson Med 43:640–644 Ikoma K, Takamiya H, Kusaka Y, Seo Y (2001) 1H double-quantum filtered MR imaging of joints tissues: bound water specific imaging of tendons, ligaments and cartilage. Magn Reson Imaging 19:1287–1296 Seo Y, Ikoma K, Takamiya H, Kusaka Y, Tsoref L, Eliav U, Shinar H, Navon G (1999) 1H double-quantum filtered MR imaging as a new tool for assessment of healing of the ruptured achilles tendon. Magn Reson Med 42:884–889 Neufeld A, Eliav U, Navon G (2003) New MRI method with contrast based on the macromolecular characteristics of tissues. Magn Reson Med 50:229–234 Eliav U, Navon G (2002) Multiple quantum filtered NMR studies of the interaction between collagen and water in the tendon. J Am Chem Soc 124:3125–3132 Fechete R, Demco DE, Blümich B, Eliav U, Navon G (2003) Anisotropy of collagen fiber orientation in sheep tendon by 1H double-quantum-filtered NMR signals. J Magn Reson 162:166–175 Fechete R, Demco DE, Blümich B (2003) Parameter maps of 1H residual dipolar couplings in tendon under mechanical load. J Magn Reson 165:9–17 Purslow PP (2002) The structure and functional significance of variations in the connective tissue within muscle. Comp Biochem Physiol Part A 133:947–966 Mann CJ, Perdiguero E, Kharraz Y, Aguilar S, Pessina P, Serrano AL, Muñoz-Cánoves P (2011) Aberrant repair and fibrosis development in skeletal muscle. Skelet Muscle 1:21 Remy J, Wegrowski J, Crechet F, Martin M, Daburon F (1991) Long-term overproduction of collagen in radiation-induced fibrosis. Radiat Res 125:14–19 Techawiboonwong A, Song HK, Leonard MB, Wehrli FW (2008) Cortical bone water: in vivo quantification with ultrashort echo-time MR imaging. Radiology 248:824–833 Du J, Carl M, Bydder M, Takahashi A, Chung CB, Bydder GM (2010) Qualitative and quantitative ultrashort echo time (UTE) imaging of cortical bone. J Magn Reson 207:304–311 Bitar AC, Santos LAU, Croci AT, Pereira JARM, Bisneto ENFB, Giovani AMM, Oliveira CRGCM (2010) Histological study of fresh versus frozen semitendinous muscle tendon allografts. Clinics 65:297–303 Jung HJ, Vangipuram G, Fisher MB, Yang G, Hsu S, Bianchi J, Ronholdt C, Woo SL (2011) The effects of multiple freeze-thaw cycles on the biomechanical properties of the human bone-patellar tendon-bone allograft. J Orthop Res 29:1193–1198 Josan S, Pauly JM, Daniel BL, Pauly KB (2009) Double half RF pulses for reduced sensitivity to eddy currents in UTE imaging. Magn Reson Med 61:1083–1089 Lu A, Daniel BL, Pauly JM, Pauly KB (2008) Improved slice selection for R2*mapping during cryoablation with eddy current compensation. J Magn Reson Imaging 28:190–198 Haacke EM, Brown RW, Thompson MR, Venkaresan R (1999) Magnetic resonance imaging, physical principles and sequence design. John Wiley and Sons Inc, USA, p 349 Gudbjartsson H, Patz S (1995) The Rician distribution of noisy MRI data. Magn Reson Med 34:910–914 Guillot G, Xu Y, Kusmia S, Hanachi H, Giovannelli J-F, Herment A (2010) Faster acquisition of MR images with double quantum filter by regularisation. In: Proceedings joint annual meeting international society for magnetic resonance in Medicine-European Society for magnetic resonance in medicine and biology ISSN 1545-4428 Stockholm, Sweden, p 4894 Shearn JT, Kinneberg KRC, Dyment NA, Galloway MT, Kenter K, Wylie C, Butler DL (2011) Tendon tissue engineering: progress, challenges, and translation to the clinic. J Musculoskelet Neuronal Interact 11:163–173