Radiology, Vol 193, 437-440, Copyright © 1994 by Radiological Society of North America

ARTICLES

Chondromalacia patellae: fat-suppressed MR imaging

PM Rose, TA Demlow, J Szumowski and SF Quinn
Department of Radiology, Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the accuracy of fat-suppressed magnetic resonance (MR) imaging in diagnosing chondromalacia patellae. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Seventy-one patients underwent fat-suppressed MR imaging and arthroscopy of the patellofemoral compartment. Findings were classified as early or advanced chondromalacia or as normal and were correlated with arthroscopic findings. RESULTS: Early and advanced stages of chondromalacia patellae were reliably detected, with positive predictive values of 85% and 92%, respectively. Specificity in early stages was 94% and in late stages was 98%. However, the overall accuracies did not differ substantially from those reported in studies that did not use fat-suppressed imaging. CONCLUSION: Axial, fat- suppressed MR imaging accurately depicts changes caused by chondromalacia patellae. Early stages can be seen as intrasubstance changes of increased signal intensity. Results of this study suggest a high degree of specificity in excluding both early and advanced changes.

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