Compositional MRI Assessment of BMLs in Knee Osteoarthritis
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Compositional MRI Assessment of Bone Marrow Oedema-Like Lesions (BMLs) in Knee Osteoarthritis
IRAS ID
237776
Contact name
Henry Noorveriandi
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
The University of Manchester
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common cause of knee pain in older people. It is a progressive degenerative disease of synovial joints that involves the entire joint, including the articular cartilage, the subchondral bone, ligaments, joint capsule, synovial membrane, and periarticular muscles. Subchondral bone marrow oedema-like lesions (BMLs) are frequently found in knee OA. BMLs detected on MRI are more common in patients with knee OA who have pain than those without pain. Recent studies suggest that they are sensitive to change and may be influenced by pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic therapies. Given their link to pain and disease progression, BML is a potentially important target for treatment in a painful knee OA.
Compositional MR imaging techniques, such as T1 mapping, fat fraction quantification, sodium imaging, magnetisation transfer and diffusion imaging are new techniques that offer more efficient and possibly better way of looking at BMLs. This technology could help differentiate normal and abnormal tissues based on the compositional MR measurements such as fat fraction. They also have the potential to assess the severity of knee OA and help better understand the mechanism of pain in knee OA and understand the relationship between BML and disease progression.
This preliminary study will assess the value of these techniques by applying them to patients with osteoarthritis and healthy volunteers.
REC name
North West - Greater Manchester East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/NW/0836
Date of REC Opinion
7 Feb 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion