Quantification of perfusion and endothelial permeability in inflammatory joint diseases

Purpose: The possibility to directly measure capillary blood flow and permeability would be of advantage for therapy control studies in inflammatory joint diseases. The Tofts-model (used to quantify perfusion so far) does not produce direct measurements of capillary blood flow. The purpose was to test a standard two-compartment-model for direct measurement of blood flow and permeability and to analyze it considering explanatory power and plausibility compared to the Tofts-model. Materials and Methods: Dynamic ce-MRI of the hands of 5 patients with rheumatoid arthritis were acquired at 3T (TWIST, 1.5×0.52 mm3) ov…