Ultrashort TE Imaging in Musculoskeletal Disease

Kurzfassung: Many of the tissues of interest in the musculoskeletal system such as tendons, ligaments, menisci and cortical bone have very short T2 s and show little or no signal when imaged with conventional clinical pulse sequences. They therefore appear as signal voids and are said to be "MR invisible". By employing sequences with very short echo times (TEs) it is possible to detect signals from the previously MR invisible tissues. They can then be characterized by measuring their relaxation times, susceptibility and other tissue properties. It is also possible to employ inversion and off resonance preparatio…