Quantitative evaluation of hyaline cartilage disorders using flash sequence. I. Method and animal experiments.

A method for quantitative evaluation of hyaline cartilage signal intensities has been developed in an experimental study of 6 swine knees with different types of arthritis. A FLASH sequence with TR 50 ms, TE 10 ms and flip angles of 5, 10, 20, 25, 30, 35, 50 and 90 degrees was employed. Two parameters of the signal intensity flip angle curves proved to be useful for tissue characterisation: The initial increase (A) and the maximum (M).