QUANTITATIVE ULTRASOUND ASSESSMENT OF EARLY OSTEOARTHRITIS IN HUMAN ARTICULAR CARTILAGE USING A HIGH-FREQUENCY LINEAR ARRAY TRANSDUCER

ultrasound (QUS) assessment of osteoarthritis (OA) using high-frequency, research -grade single-element ultrasound systems has been reported. The objective of this ex vivo study was to assess the performance of QUS in detecting early OA using a high-frequency linear array transducer. Osteochondral plugs (n = 26) of human articular cartilage were scanned with ExactVu Micro-Ultrasound using an EV29L side-fire transducer. For comparison, the samples were also imaged with SAM200Ex, a custom 40-MHz scanning acoustic microscope with a single-element, focused transducer. Thirteen QUS parameters were derived from the ultra-sound data. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data, with T1 and T2 extracted as the quantitative parameters, were also acquired for comparison. Cartilage degeneration was graded from histology and correlated to all quantitative parameters. A maximum Spearman rank correlation coefficient (r) of 0.75 was achieved using a combination of ExactVu QUS parameters, while a maximum r of 0.62 was achieved using a combination of parameters from SAM200Ex. A maximum r of 0.75 was achieved using the T1 and T2 MRI parameters. This study illustrates the potential of a high-frequency linear array transducer to provide a convenient method for early OA screening with results comparable to those of research-grade single-element ultrasound and MRI. (E-mail: jom4032@med. cornell.edu)(c) 2022 World Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study assessed the performance of a high-frequency linear array transducer in detecting early osteoarthritis. The results showed that the transducer has comparable screening capabilities for early osteoarthritis to research-grade single-element ultrasound and MRI.