3-D High-Frequency Ultrasound Backscatter Analysis of Human Articular Cartilage

Ultrasound Backscattering Is Anisotropic in Bovine Articular Cartilage

“…Furthermore, in this study the values of AIB measured through the articular surface were in the same range as those reported previously for 40-MHz (Vir en et al 2011) and 9-MHz ultrasound (Liukkonen et al 2013). In M€ annicke et al (2014), in contrast to the present study, ultrasound measurements were conducted only through the articular surface, and backscattering was evaluated using spectral slope and envelope statistical parameters with 40-MHz ultrasound. The authors reported that the ultrasound parameters were sensitive to the early-stage degeneration of extracellular matrix.…”

“…Ultrasound speed is higher in the direction parallel to the articular cartilage surface (Agemura et al 1990;Patil et al 2004). It has been proposed that mainly the collagen network and chondrocytes affect the ultrasound attenuation and backscattering properties of cartilage (Agemura et al 1990;M€ annicke et al 2014). Furthermore, in other soft tissues, collagen structure and concentration are thought to have a major effect on anisotropic ultrasound backscattering because of the acoustical mismatch between the collagen and surrounding tissue (Hoffmeister et al 1991).…”

A Novel Indicator for Quantitative Assessment of Articular Cartilage Degeneration Using Ultrasound

“…The middle part is relatively hyperechoic, probably because this part is near the transitional zone, where collagen content, fibril orientation as well as chondrocyte size and shape are subject to change [18]. However, for degraded samples, upper and deep parts of the cartilage matrix are also likely to be hyperechoic, thus degraded samples show higher AMR compared to controls.…”

Articular cartilage degeneration classification by means of high-frequency ultrasound

“…This work was based on the ex-vivo measurements, data evaluation and histological analysis of two previous studies 5,6 . The following three sections briefly summarize these aspects.…”

“…Recently, we have shown that 3D-UBM not only enables improved estimation of surface properties 5 , but also gives access to US backscatter parameters of the cartilage matrix 6 , whose analyses have been only sparsely carried out until now. Statistically significant differences of individual surface and backscatter parameters were found with respect to early structural and cellular degenerations, as assessed by the histologically derived Mankin subset score.…”