ArticleBMC medical imaging2023
Ultra-short echo time MR imaging in assessing cartilage endplate damage and relationship between its lesion and disc degeneration for chronic low back pain patients.
Article in BMC medical imaging, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 13 citations in OpenAlex.
- Evaluation of cartilaginous endplate degeneration with histogram features of multiple parameters in UTE MRI.BMC medical imaging · 2026Article
- Application of VIBE sequences for visualization and assessing cartilaginous endplate damage in low back pain patients.BMC medical imaging · 2025Article
- Qualitative and Quantitative MR Imaging of the Cartilaginous Endplate: A Review.Journal of magnetic resonance imaging : JMRI · 2025Review
- Ultrashort Echo Time Magnetic Resonance Morphology of Discovertebral Junction in Chronic Low Back Pain Subjects.Tomography (Ann Arbor, Mich.) · 2025Article
- Review
- Ultrashort-Echo-Time MRI of the Disco-Vertebral Junction: Modulation of Image Contrast via Echo Subtraction and Echo Times.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Trends in Physiotherapy of Chronic Low Back Pain Research: Knowledge Synthesis Based on Bibliometric Analysis.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Quantitative and Compositional MRI of the Articular Cartilage: A Narrative Review.Tomography (Ann Arbor, Mich.) · 2024Review
- Cartilaginous endplate coverage of developmental Schmorl's node and the relevance of this in Schmorl's node etiology-based classification.Quantitative imaging in medicine and surgery · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo investigate the feasibility of ultra-short echo time (UTE) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the assessment of cartilage endplate (CEP) damage and further evaluate the relationship between total endplate score (TEPS) and lumbar intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration for chronic low back pain patients. MATERIALS AND
methodsIVD were measured in 35 patients using UTE imaging at 3T MR. Subtracted UTE images between short and long TEs were obtained to depict anatomy of CEP. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) were calculated to assess the image quality quantitatively. A new grading criterion for endplate damage evaluation was developed based on Rajasekaran.S grading system in this study. Two radiologists were employed to evaluate CEP and bony vertebral endplates (VEP) using this new grading criterion and assess TEPS, independently. Cohen's kappa analysis was applied to evaluate the inter-observer agreement of endplate damage assessment between two radiologists, and the Kendall's TAU-B analysis was employed to determine the relationship between TEPS and IVD degeneration evaluated with Pfirrmann grading.
resultsWell structural CEP was depicted on subtracted UTE images and confirmed by high SNR (33.06±2.92) and CNR values (9.4±2.08). Qualified subtracted UTE images were used by two radiologists to evaluate the degree of CEP and VEP damage. Excellent inter-observer agreement was confirmed by high value in Cohen's kappa test (0.839, P < 0.001). Ensured by this, 138 endplates from 69 IVDs of 35 patients were classified into six grades based on the new grading criterion and TEPS of each endplate was calculated. In addition, the degeneration degree of IVDs were classified into five grades. Finally, using Kendall's TAU-B analysis, significant relationship was obtained between endplate damage related TEPS and IVD degeneration (r = 0.864, P < 0.001).
conclusionEnsured by high image quality, UTE imaging might be considered an effective tool to assess CEP damage. Additionally, further calculated TEPS has shown strong positive association with IVD degeneration, suggesting that the severity of endplate damage is highly linked with the degree of IVD degeneration.
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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.