The appearance of the equine metacarpophalangeal region on high-field vs. standing low-field magnetic resonance imaging.

The appearance of the equine metacarpophalangeal (MCP) joint on high-field (1.5 T) vs. low-field standing (0.27 T) magnetic resonance (MR) images was evaluated. Objectives were (1) to describe the MR appearance of anatomic structures of clinical interest on images of the equine MCP joint obtained from 20 equine cadaver limbs from horses without lameness using high-field and low-field systems, (2) to categorize the clarity of appearance of anatomic structures on low-field MR images in comparison to high-field images as a gold standard. We found that larger anatomic structures were visible with sharp margins on both high- and low-field images, smaller structures were less distinct on low-field images and therefore interpretation of smaller structures on low-field images must be done with care.