Muehleman Carol, Chapman L Dean, Kuettner Klaus E, Rieff Joel, Mollenhauer Juergen A, Massuda Koichi, Zhong Zhong
Department of Anatomy, Rush Medical College, Chicago, Illinois 60612, USA.
Anat Rec A Discov Mol Cell Evol Biol. 2003 May;272(1):392-7. doi: 10.1002/ar.a.10043.
Articular cartilage of synovial joints is not visible with conventional X-ray imaging. Hence, the gradual degeneration and destruction of articular cartilage, which is characteristic of degenerative joint diseases, is only detected at a late stage when the cartilage is lost and the joint space that it once occupied narrows. The development of an X-ray imaging technique that could detect both the degenerative cartilage and bone features of joint diseases is of special interest. Here we show, for the first time, that a high-contrast imaging technique, diffraction-enhanced X-ray imaging (DEI), allows the visualization of articular cartilage of both disarticulated and articulated rabbit knee joints. Furthermore, a single cartilage lesion can be visualized within an intact joint. The results suggest that DEI has the potential to be of use in the study of cartilage degeneration.
滑膜关节的关节软骨在传统X线成像中不可见。因此，作为退行性关节疾病特征的关节软骨的逐渐退化和破坏，只有在软骨丧失且其曾经占据的关节间隙变窄的晚期才能被检测到。开发一种能够检测关节疾病的退化软骨和骨骼特征的X线成像技术备受关注。在此我们首次表明，一种高对比度成像技术——衍射增强X线成像（DEI），能够使离体和活体兔膝关节的关节软骨可视化。此外，在完整关节内可以观察到单个软骨损伤。这些结果表明，DEI在软骨退变研究中具有应用潜力。
