Comparative Study on the Diagnostic Efficacy of Conventional MRI Sequences and T2 Mapping Sequences in Cartilage Injury

Abstract

Objective: To retrospectively evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of traditional MRI and T2 Mapping quantitative imaging technology for knee joint cartilage injury, clarify the differences in diagnostic value of the two imaging methods in different injury grades and different cartilage subregions, and provide evidence-based basis for the accurate diagnosis of clinical cartilage injury. Methods: Clinical and imaging data of 286 patients with knee joint lesions admitted to the Affiliated Hospital of Xiangtan Medicine and Health Vocational College from January 2020 to June 2023 were collected retrospectively. All patients underwent both traditional MRI sequences and T2 Mapping sequences. The knee joint cartilage was divided into 14 subregions. Two senior radiologists independently diagnosed the images of the two imaging technologies using a blind method and recorded the cartilage injury grades. The sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of the two technologies for diagnosing cartilage injury were calculated and compared, and the differences in their diagnostic efficacy in different injury grades and different subregions were analyzed. Results: A total of 4004 cartilage subregions from 286 patients were included in the analysis, including 1836 injured subregions and 2168 normal subregions. The overall sensitivity (89.7%), accuracy (91.2%), and AUC (0.946) of T2 Mapping quantitative imaging for diagnosing cartilage injury were significantly higher than those of traditional MRI (76.3%, 82.5%, and 0.852 respectively), with statistically significant differences (p < 0.001); there was no significant difference in specificity between the two (93.5% vs 90.8%, p = 0.062). Subgroup analysis showed that T2 Mapping had the most significant diagnostic advantage in early cartilage injury (Grade 1), with sensitivity (78.5%) 33.2% higher than that of traditional MRI (45.3%) (p < 0.001). Conclusion: The diagnostic efficacy of T2 Mapping quantitative imaging for knee joint cartilage injury is significantly superior to that of traditional MRI, especially in the detection of early cartilage injury and accurate evaluation of weight-bearing area injury. Data verify its clinical applicability and reliability. It can be used as an important supplementary method to traditional MRI, and is recommended for the early diagnosis, grading evaluation, and clinical follow-up of cartilage injury.