Comparison of 3T MR scanners in regional cartilage-thickness analysis in osteoarthritis: a cross-sectional multicenter, multivendor study

INTRODUCTION: Cartilage thickness from MR images has been identified as a possible biomarker in knee osteoarthritis (OA) research. The ability to acquire MR data at multiple centers by using different vendors' scanners would facilitate patient recruitment and shorten the duration of OA trials. Several vendors manufacture 3T MR scanners, including Siemens, Philips Medical Systems, and GE Healthcare. This study investigates whether quantitative MR assessments of cartilage morphology are comparable between scanners of three different vendors. METHODS: Twelve subjects with symptoms of knee OA and one or more risk factors had their symptomatic knee scanned on each of the three vendor's scanners located in three sites in the UK: Manchester (Philips), York (GE), and Liverpool (Siemens). The NIH OAI study protocol was used for the Siemens scanner, and equivalent protocols were developed for the Philips and GE scanners with vendors' advice. Cartilage was segmented manually from sagittal 3D images. By using recently described techniques for Anatomically Corresponded Regional Analysis of Cartilage (ACRAC), a statistical model was used anatomically to align all the images and to produce detailed maps of mean differences in cartilage-thickness measures between scanners. Measures of cartilage mean thickness were computed in anatomically equivalent regions for each subject and scanner image. RESULTS: The ranges of mean cartilage-thickness measures for this cohort were similar for all regions and across all scanners. Philips intrascanner root-mean-square coefficients of variation were low in the range from 2.6% to 4.6%. No significant differences were found for thickness measures of the weight-bearing femorotibial regions from the Philips and Siemens images except for the central medial femur compartment (P = 0.04). Compared with the other two scanners, the GE scanner provided consistently lower mean thickness measures in the central femoral regions (mean difference, -0.16 mm) and higher measures in the tibial compartments (mean difference, +0.19 mm). CONCLUSIONS: The OAI knee-imaging protocol, developed on the Siemens platform, can be applied to research and trials by using other vendors' 3T scanners giving comparable morphologic results. Accurate sequence optimization, differences in image postprocessing, and extremity coil type are critical factors for interscanner precision of quantitative analysis of cartilage morphology. It is still recommended that longitudinal observations on individuals should be performed on the same scanner and that assessment of intra- and interscanner precision errors is undertaken before commencement of the main study.