Hyaline Cartilage Imaging with Improved FS-3D-TrueFISP Sequence:Comparison with Conventional Sequences

Objective: To explore the feasibility of improved fat-saturated three-dimensional true fast imaging with steady-state precession (FS-3D-TrueFISP) sequence for imaging hyaline cartilage of the knee.Methods: Single knee of 10 volunteers was scanned with two FS-3D-TrueFISP sequences after improved and conventional hyaline cartilage defects sequences.Measured the signal intensity of the hyaline cartilage of patellar facets,synovial fluid and background noise respectively.The signal to noise ratio (SNR) of hyaline cartilage,contrast to noise ratio (CNR) of hyaline cartilage to synovial fluid and CNR efficiency (CNReff) was calculated for each of the five sequences.Statistically significant differences in SNR,CNR and CNReff were determined.Results: On improved sequence hyaline cartilage showed moderate intensity,4 cases on FS-3D-TrueFISP showed three layers structure same as FS-3D-FLASH.The SNR,CNR and CNReff of the five sequences had statistically significant differences (P<0.05),the CNR and CNReff of FS-3D-TrueFISP,in which the number of acquisition is 2,was best.Conclusion: The improved TrueFISP sequence can image cartilage with excellent CNR in shorter scan time,this improved sequence can be used to image the hyaline cartilage in the knee.