Musculoskeletal Imaging
A focus of research within the IRC involves the use of MRI to study juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA) and other musculoskeletal disorders.
Dr. Bernard Dardzinski has funding from the Arthritis Foundation to measure articular cartilage water mobility noninvasively in normal children and in children with JRA. This method may allow for the detection of early disease before cartilage erosions are seen with conventional radiography.
Dr. Dardzinski and Dr. Tal Laor are using dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI to evaluate the synovium in the wrist of children who are beginning therapy for JRA. This technique evaluates the volume and disease activity of the synovium noninvasively. They are also using dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI to evaluate other non-neoplastic muscu1oskeletal disorders such as avascular necrosis.
Dr. Dardzinski has recently received two other NIH grants. The first grant is a MR microimaging core center grant. Research related to this grant will focus on using MR to study disease processes and inflammatory mechanisms in animal models. The second grant is a clinical science center grant to determine whether cartilage water mobility maps will be able to detect cartilage erosions in the future, and to monitor therapy in children who have JRA. This is a longitudinal MRI study.
Recent publications of Dr. Dardzinski: - Dardzinski BJ, Smith SL, Towfighi J, Williams GD, Vannucci RC, Smith MB. Increased plasma beta-hydroxybutyrate, preserved cerebral energy metabolism, and amelioration of brain damage during neonatal hypoxia ischemia with dexamethasone pretreatment. Pediatr Res, 48: 248-255, 2000.
- Mosher TJ, Dardzinski BJ, Smith MB. Human articular cartilage: influence of aging and early symptomatic degeneration on the spatial variation of T2--preliminary findings at 3 T. Radiology, 214: 259-266, 2000.
- Dardzinski BJ, Schmithorst VJ, Holland SK, Boivin GP, Imagawa T, Watanabe S, Lewis JM, Hirsch R. MR imaging of murine arthritis using ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide particles. Magn Reson Imaging, 19: 1209-1216, 2001.
- Gylys-Morin VM, Graham TB, Blebea JS, Dardzinski BJ, Laor T, Johnson ND, Oestreich AE, Passo MH. Knee in early juvenile rheumatoid arthritis: MR imaging findings. Radiology, 220: 696-706, 2001.
- Mosher TJ, Smith H, Dardzinski BJ, Schmithorst VJ, Smith MB. MR imaging and T2 mapping of femoral cartilage: in vivo determination of the magic angle effect. AJR Am J Roentgenol, 177: 665-669, 2001.
- Schmithorst VJ, Dardzinski BJ, Holland SK. Simultaneous correction of ghost and geometric distortion artifacts in EPI using a multiecho reference scan. IEEE Trans Med Imaging, 20: 535-539, 2001.
- Smith HE, Mosher TJ, Dardzinski BJ, Collins BG, Collins CM, Yang QX, Schmithorst VJ, Smith MB. Spatial variation in cartilage T2 of the knee. J Magn Reson Imaging, 14: 50-55, 2001.
- Sze RW, Chan CB, Dardzinski BJ, Dunn S, Sanbe A, Schmithorst V, Robbins J, Holland SK, Strife JL. Three-dimensional MR microscopy of a transgenic mouse model of dilated cardiomyopathy. Pediatr Radiol, 31: 55-61, 2001.
- Schmithorst VJ, Wilke M, Dardzinski BJ, Holland SK. Correlation of white matter diffusivity and anisotropy with age during childhood and adolescence: a cross-sectional diffusion-tensor MR imaging study. Radiology, 222: 212-218, 2002.
- Schmithorst VJ, Dardzinski BJ. Automatic gradient preemphasis adjustment: a 15-minute journey to improved diffusion-weighted echo-planar imaging. Magn Reson Med, 47: 208-212, 2002.
