a basic question about a small fact I’ve never really thought about…
until I’ve been asked the other day 🙂
Cartilage tends to look thinner on T2 imaging than on T1 scans.
In my experience it’s perceived thickness correlates inversely with the TE
used, i.e. it will look thinner on an “intermediate weighted” scan with,
say, TR=3000 and TE=45 than on another with same TR but TE=25. (However,
I’d rather use the former in my daily practice.)
Why exactly is that?
Is it chemical shift efect with slight misregistration of the
bone/cartilage boundary?
And why, in that case, do many of us favor scans weighted more towards T2
for assessing cartilage damage?
It seems self-evident in practice, but the “science” behind it eludes me.
Thanks, and have a nice Friday!
Andrei
