A Simplified Method of T1ρ Mapping in Clinical Assessment of Knee Joint

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Purpose: We assessed the clinical utility of our proposed simplified method for T1ρ mapping calculations. Materials and Methods: Ten healthy subjects underwent scanning on a 3-tesla magnetic resonance system using an 8-channel phased-array coil. For each subject, we obtained sagittal T1ρ-prepared images using 5 different time of spin-lock pulses (TSL=1, 20, 40, 60, and 80 ms), produced conventional T1ρ maps (cT1ρ maps) using all TSLs, and recomputed our proposed simplified T1ρ maps (sT1ρ maps) using a decreasing number of TSLs (from 4 to 2). We then investigated the differences and correlations in T1ρ values of the tissues obtained using different numbers of spin-lock times. Results: There was a strong positive correlation (single measure intraclass correlation coefficient=0.948; 95% confidence interval=0.911 to 0.970) in T1ρ values of tissues between the cT1ρ and sT1ρ [1, 80] maps. The 2 maps were comparable, though there was a small difference in T1ρ value between the two. The total scan time to acquire the data from 5 spin-lock times was 16 min 15 s. Similarity of the T1ρ [1, 80] map with the conventional approach reduced scan time by 60%, to 6 min 30 s. Conclusion: The clinical relevance of our proposed simplified method is potentially similar to that of the conventional method, and our method requires a shorter examination time and generally preserves the reliability of the T1ρ relaxation time of the tissues.