7T cross-vendor repeatability study of cartilage T2 values using DOSMA on qDESS images

Cartilage T2 relaxation times (T2), used to detect early knee osteoarthritis, lack standardization in acquiring and processing data, making comparisons between studies difficult. Standardizing image post-processing could possibly control for biases. Here, we assess qDESS cartilage T2 repeatability across two different sites and 7T scanner vendors with identical automatic segmentation and T2 mapping software. Within-site repeatability was good (ICC≥ 0.75) for most cartilage regions, while cross-vendor repeatability was good for the tibial and femoral posterior cartilage. This preliminary study shows standardizing acquisition and post-processing can lead to repeatable T2 values across different vendors.