Automatic quantification of bone marrow edema on MRI of the wrist in patients with early arthritis: A feasibility study

Evgeni Aizenberg*, Edgar A.H. Roex, Wouter P. Nieuwenhuis, Lukas Mangnus, Annette H.M. van der Helm-Mil, Monique Reijnierse, Johan L. Bloem, Boudewijn P.F. Lelieveldt, Berend G. Stoel

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

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Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the feasibility of automatic quantification of bone marrow edema (BME) on MRI of the wrist in patients with early arthritis.
Methods: For 485 early arthritis patients (clinically confirmed arthritis of one or more joints, symptoms for less than 2 years), MR scans of the wrist were processed in three automatic stages. First, super-resolution reconstruction was applied to fuse coronal and axial scans into a single high-resolution 3D image. Next, the carpal bones were located and delineated using atlas-based segmentation. Finally, the extent of BME within each bone was quantified by identifying image intensity values characteristic of BME by fuzzy clustering and measuring the fraction of voxels with these characteristic intensities within each bone. Correlation with visual BME scores was assessed through Pearson correlation coefficient.
Results: Pearson correlation between quantitative and visual BME scores across 485 patients was r=0.83, P<0.001. Conclusions: Quantitative measurement of BME on MRI of the wrist has the potential to provide a feasible alternative to visual scoring. Complete automation requires automatic detection and compensation of acquisition artifacts.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1127-1134
Number of pages8
JournalMagnetic Resonance in Medicine
Volume79
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2018

Keywords

  • Atlas-based segmentation
  • Bone marrow edema
  • Inflammation
  • Rheumatoid arthritis
  • Superresolution reconstruction

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