Improving the clinical efficiency ofT2mapping of ligament integrity

Current MR methods useT2*relaxation time as a surrogate measure of ligament strength. Currently, a multi-echo voxel-wise least squares fit is the gold standard to createT2*maps; however, the post-processing is time-intensive and serves as a stopgap for clinical use. The study objective was to determine if an alternative method could improve post-processing time without sacrificing fidelity ofT2*values for eventual translational use in the clinic. Using a 6 echo FLASH sequence, three different methods were used to determine intact posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) medianT2*Two of these methods utilized a voxel-wise method to establishT2*maps: (1) a current "gold standard" method using a voxel-wise 6 echo least-squares fit (6LS) and (2) a voxel-wise 2 echo pointT2*determination (2MM). The third method used median ligament signal intensity and a single nonlinear least-squares fit (6LSROI) instead of a voxel-wise basis. The resulting medianT2*values of the PCL and computational time were compared. The medianT2*values were 42% higher using the 2MM compared to the 6LS method (p