ArticleArthroscopy, sports medicine, and rehabilitation2021
Patterns of Articular Cartilage Thickness in Pediatric and Adolescent Knees: A Magnetic Resonance Imaging-Based Study.
Article in Arthroscopy, sports medicine, and rehabilitation, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 21 citations in OpenAlex.
- Are Altered Knee Joint Biomechanics Associated with Future Post-Traumatic Osteoarthritis Outcomes? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Longitudinal Studies.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2025Pooled it
- A Thematic Narrative Review of Osteoarthritis Risk Factors Across the Female Life Course.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Increased sagittal patellar height and reduced trochlear engagement on MRI are associated with recurrent patellar instability in skeletally immature knees: A comparative study.Journal of experimental orthopaedics · 2026Article
- Associations of health parameters at 16 years of age with structural knee MRI findings at 33 years of age in a general population-based birth cohort.Osteoarthritis and cartilage open · 2026Article
- Outcomes of Restorative Treatment for Isolated Patellar Cartilage Lesions: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.Orthopaedic journal of sports medicine · 2026Review
- Shoulder Complex Dysfunction Through an Evolutionary Lens: The Need for Closed Kinetic Chain Loading in Upper Extremity Program Design.Journal of functional morphology and kinesiology · 2026Review
- Tibiofemoral Joint Contact Force Profiles of Pediatric Patients After Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction.The American journal of sports medicine · 2025Article
- Effect of Malnutrition on Femoral Cartilage Thickness in Pediatric Patients.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- [Patellar cartilage repair-current concepts and evidence].Orthopadie (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2025Review
- Biomechanical properties of articular cartilage in different regions and sites of the knee joint: acquisition of osteochondral allografts.Cell and tissue banking · 2024Article
- Article
- Comparison of Knee Articular Cartilage Defect Size Between Measurements Obtained on Preoperative MRI Versus During Arthrotomy.Orthopaedic journal of sports medicine · 2023Article
- Morphometric Parameters and MRI Morphological Changes of the Knee and Patella in Physically Active Adolescents.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2023Article
- Patellofemoral contact forces and knee gait mechanics 3 months after ACL reconstruction are associated with cartilage degradation 24 months after surgery.Osteoarthritis and cartilage · 2023Article
- Intra-Articular Mesenchymal Stem Cell Injection for Knee Osteoarthritis: Mechanisms and Clinical Evidence.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeTo establish normative values for articular cartilage thickness in pediatric and adolescent knees using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and investigate for any associations with age and skeletal maturity.
methodsMRI scans were analyzed in patients 7 to 18 years old without osteochondral lesions, chondral wear/pathology, intra-articular fractures, or history of knee surgery. Measurements of articular cartilage thickness at the patella (medial facet, lateral facet, median ridge), femur (medial condyle, lateral condyle, lateral trochlea), and tibia (medial plateau, lateral plateau) were made on axial, coronal, and sagittal MRI. Descriptive statistics were used to calculate mean cartilage thickness by age and sex. Analysis of variance with repeated measures, analysis of covariance, independent samples
resultsA total of 240 knee MRI scans were included. Articular cartilage was thickest at the patella and did not vary with age or skeletal maturity. On the femur, articular cartilage was thickest at the lateral trochlea with mean cartilage thickness of 4.4 ± 1.4 mm in male patients and 3.6 ± 1.3 mm in female patients (
conclusionsIn pediatric and adolescent knees, articular cartilage is thickest at the patella, where it does not strongly correlate with age. In contrast, there is a strong inverse association between increasing age and articular cartilage thickness of the distal femoral condyles. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: The longitudinal reference data presented in this study can aid in pre-operative interpretation of knee cartilage under pathologic conditions in pediatric and adolescent patients.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.