CIALAB work detailing relationships between the meniscus and cartilage, and their implications in the development and progression of osteoarthritis, has been accepted for presentation at the 2009 OARSI World Congress on Osteoarthritis. The analysis was performed by Jeff Prescott, Furqan Haq PhD, Tom Best MD/PhD, Micheal Pennell PhD, Rebecca Jackson MD, and Metin Gurcan PhD. The full abstract appears below.
Purpose: To determine associations between meniscus volume and knee cartilage morphological measurements in subjects with osteoarthritis (OA).
Methods: All data was obtained from the Osteoarthritis Initiative’s (OAI) public use dataset (www.oai.ucsf.edu). A sample of progression subjects produced by the OAI was used for the study (Subgroup B, release 0.B.2). Out of the 160 subjects in the sample, two had no discernable meniscus and were excluded, leaving 158 subjects in the analysis. The current study focused on the right knee, as this was the only knee for which cartilage measures were available from the OAI. The lateral meniscus was manually delineated by trained readers on sagittal T2-weighted MR scans for each subject (Fig. 1). Volume measures of the anterior horn (AH), posterior horn (PH), and total meniscus were calculated using Matlab (Mathworks, Natick, MA). Cartilage morphological measurements and related bone measurements were obtained from the quantitative studies of Eckstein (kMRI_QCart_Eckstein00, release 0.1). Repeated variable measurements in the Eckstein dataset were removed, leaving only a single measurement per variable. Linear regression models were used to analyze relationships between the meniscus volume measures and the cartilage measures, with adjustments made for sex, age group (age <>= 62), and obesity (BMI <>= 30: obese). Since 92 cartilage measures were evaluated, statistical significance was assessed at a Bonferroni-correct alpha of 0.0005. All statistical analyses were performed using JMP 8.0 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC).
Results: The total volume of the meniscus has the largest number of significant associations with the cartilage measures (Table 1). All but one association between meniscus volume and cartilage measures are related to the tibia. While the majority of the lateral meniscus relationships are to the cartilage in the lateral compartment, there are a few relationships to medial compartment cartilage. The volume of the posterior horn is the only volume related to the percent of subchondral bone denuded of cartilage.
Conclusions: The results suggest that there may be an important association between the lateral meniscus and the tibia cartilage. It is interesting to note that there was no statistically significant association found between the meniscus and femur cartilage. This result implies that the tibia cartilage and lateral meniscus may respond similarly, perhaps even in unison, to changes due to OA. The current study analyzed meniscus and cartilage relationships for subjects with a wide range of radiographic and symptomatic features of OA. Further work will focus on characterization of the interactions between meniscus and articular cartilage and stratification of associations with respect to clinical measures of OA severity such as KL grade.
Purpose: To determine associations between meniscus volume and knee cartilage morphological measurements in subjects with osteoarthritis (OA).
Methods: All data was obtained from the Osteoarthritis Initiative’s (OAI) public use dataset (www.oai.ucsf.edu). A sample of progression subjects produced by the OAI was used for the study (Subgroup B, release 0.B.2). Out of the 160 subjects in the sample, two had no discernable meniscus and were excluded, leaving 158 subjects in the analysis. The current study focused on the right knee, as this was the only knee for which cartilage measures were available from the OAI. The lateral meniscus was manually delineated by trained readers on sagittal T2-weighted MR scans for each subject (Fig. 1). Volume measures of the anterior horn (AH), posterior horn (PH), and total meniscus were calculated using Matlab (Mathworks, Natick, MA). Cartilage morphological measurements and related bone measurements were obtained from the quantitative studies of Eckstein (kMRI_QCart_Eckstein00, release 0.1). Repeated variable measurements in the Eckstein dataset were removed, leaving only a single measurement per variable. Linear regression models were used to analyze relationships between the meniscus volume measures and the cartilage measures, with adjustments made for sex, age group (age <>= 62), and obesity (BMI <>= 30: obese). Since 92 cartilage measures were evaluated, statistical significance was assessed at a Bonferroni-correct alpha of 0.0005. All statistical analyses were performed using JMP 8.0 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC).
Results: The total volume of the meniscus has the largest number of significant associations with the cartilage measures (Table 1). All but one association between meniscus volume and cartilage measures are related to the tibia. While the majority of the lateral meniscus relationships are to the cartilage in the lateral compartment, there are a few relationships to medial compartment cartilage. The volume of the posterior horn is the only volume related to the percent of subchondral bone denuded of cartilage.
Conclusions: The results suggest that there may be an important association between the lateral meniscus and the tibia cartilage. It is interesting to note that there was no statistically significant association found between the meniscus and femur cartilage. This result implies that the tibia cartilage and lateral meniscus may respond similarly, perhaps even in unison, to changes due to OA. The current study analyzed meniscus and cartilage relationships for subjects with a wide range of radiographic and symptomatic features of OA. Further work will focus on characterization of the interactions between meniscus and articular cartilage and stratification of associations with respect to clinical measures of OA severity such as KL grade.
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