ArticleKnee surgery, sports traumatology, arthroscopy : official journal of the ESSKA2025
The transepicondylar distance is a reliable and easily measured parameter for estimating femoral cartilage surface area using MRI.
Article in Knee surgery, sports traumatology, arthroscopy : official journal of the ESSKA, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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2 citing papers in PubMed.
- The transepicondylar distance is a reliable and easily measured parameter for estimating femoral cartilage surface area using MRI.Knee surgery, sports traumatology, arthroscopy : official journal of the ESSKA · 2025Article
- Medial patellofemoral ligament reconstruction normalizes patellar kinematics but fails to predict cartilage contact area: A prospective 3D MRI study.Journal of experimental orthopaedics · 2025Article
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7 authors.
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Abstract
purposeDifferent cartilage repair techniques are widely used to regenerate cartilage, such as autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI), osteochondral autograft transfer, microfracturing and minced cartilage. Defect size is a key parameter for selecting the best procedure to repair cartilage. However, the defect's size is not related to the patient's total cartilage surface. This is because assessing the femoral cartilage surface area is time-consuming and therefore unsuitable in the daily clinical routine. It has been proposed that the femur's total cartilage area correlates positively with the transepicondylar distance (TEA).
methodsThe knees of 40 subjects were analysed. Their average age was 30.1 ± 8.6 years. Twenty-four female and 16 male subjects were examined. Their mean body height was 176.2 ± 8.8 cm. MRI scans were performed via 3-Tesla MRI. These data were postprocessed and quantified using the browser-based, customizable SATORI platform (Fraunhofer MEVIS). This software computed the femoral cartilage surface area (FeCA), the patella cartilage surface area (PCA), the TEA and the patella length.
resultsBody height reveals a good correlation (r = 0.722, p < 0.001) with the distal femur's cartilage area surface. However, regression analysis shows only moderate dependence (R
conclusionThe TEA is a reliable parameter for estimating the femur's cartilage area using MRI. A simple determination of this parameter allows the estimation of the femur's total cartilage area as well as the surface-corrected defect size (SCDS) in daily routine. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level II.
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