{"doi":"10.1007/s00256-024-04786-1","title":"Evaluation of an automated laminar cartilage T2 relaxation time analysis method in an early osteoarthritis model","abstract":"Abstract Objective A fully automated laminar cartilage composition (MRI-based T2) analysis method was technically and clinically validated by comparing radiographically normal knees with (CL-JSN) and without contra-lateral joint space narrowing or other signs of radiographic osteoarthritis (OA, CL-noROA). Materials and methods 2D U-Nets were trained from manually segmented femorotibial cartilages ( n = 72) from all 7 echoes (All E ), or from the 1st echo only (1 st E ) of multi-echo-spin-echo (MESE) MRIs acquired by the Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI). Because of its greater accuracy, only the All E U-Net was then applied to knees from the OAI healthy reference cohort ( n = 10), CL-JSN ( n = 39), and (1:1) matched CL-noROA knees ( n = 39) that all had manual expert segmentation, and to 982 non-matched CL-noROA knees without expert segmentation. Results The agreement (Dice similarity coefficient) between automated vs. manual expert cartilage segmentation was between 0.82 ± 0.05/0.79 ± 0.06 (All E /1 st E) and 0.88 ± 0.03/0.88 ± 0.03 (All E /1 st E ) across femorotibial cartilage plates. The deviation between automated vs. manually derived laminar T2 reached up to − 2.2 ± 2.6 ms/ + 4.1 ± 10.2 ms (All E /1 st E ). The All E U-Net showed a similar sensitivity to cross-sectional laminar T2 differences between CL-JSN and CL-noROA knees in the matched (Cohen’s D ≤ 0.54) and the non-matched ( D ≤ 0.54) comparison as the matched manual analyses ( D ≤ 0.48). Longitudinally, the All E U-Net also showed a similar sensitivity to CL-JSN vs. CS-noROA differences in the matched ( D ≤ 0.51) and the non-matched ( D ≤ 0.43) comparison as matched manual analyses ( D ≤ 0.41). Conclusion The fully automated T2 analysis showed a high agreement, acceptable accuracy, and similar sensitivity to cross-sectional and longitudinal laminar T2 differences in an early OA model, compared with manual expert analysis. Trial registration Clinicaltrials.gov identification: NCT00080171.","journal":"Skeletal Radiology","year":2024,"id":443181,"datarank":0.35053541672252175,"base_score":2.1972245773362196,"endowment":2.1972245773362196,"self_citation_contribution":0.32958368660043297,"citation_network_contribution":0.020951730122088792,"self_endowment_contribution":0.32958368660043297,"citer_contribution":0.020951730122088792,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":8,"citer_count":4,"citers_with_citation_signal":2,"citers_with_endowment":2,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.89,"is_data_producer":true,"deposit_databanks":{"ClinicalTrials.gov":["NCT00080171"]},"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":512684,"name":"S. Maschek","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1257809,"name":"Anna Wisser","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1257810,"name":"Jana Eder","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":334416,"name":"Christian F. Baumgartner","orcid":"0000-0002-3629-4384","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":301558,"name":"Akshay Chaudhari","orcid":"0000-0002-3667-6796","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":14773,"name":"Francis Bérenbaum","orcid":"0000-0001-8252-7815","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":325186,"name":"F. Eckstein","orcid":"0000-0002-2014-8278","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":325184,"name":"W. Wirth","orcid":"0000-0002-2297-8283","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":28,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:01:24.471942Z","pmid":"39230576","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}