Dynamic visualisation and measurement of cartilage morphology by magnetic resonance imaging-based knee kinematics.

To address the limitation in static imaging for clinical diagnosis of knee joints based on a snapshot of the knee in a fixed pose, an approach is presented for quantitative assessment of knee joints in a dynamic manner. The core of the proposed approach is based on kinematics of the knee bones, whereby articulation of knee joints derived from magnetic resonance imaging is emulated by capturing and mimicking the movement of an artificial anatomical knee model. Through bone-based kinematic emulation, dynamic visualisation and measurement of cartilage morphology are demonstrated by focusing on tibiofemoral cartilage thickness as a function of knee joint movement angle. In particular, the differences in dynamic tibiofemoral cartilage thickness between two knees with mild and severe osteoarthritis are illustrated to show the effectiveness and potential of the proposed approach. Also presented is an interactive visualisation and measurement tool based on Matlab for dynamic knee joint assessment.