Diagnostic value of PD- fat suppression and T2 gradient echo MRI sequences in diagnosis of cruciate ligament and meniscal lesions

Knee MRI has drawn attention due to its non-invasiveness and its high accuracy. Few reports about the accuracy of PDFS sequences for diagnosis of injured menisci and cruciate ligaments have been published. This study was performed to compare the diagnostic value of proton density with fat suppression (PDFS) and T2 gradient echo (T2 GRE) MRI sequences in injured menisci and cruciate ligaments of knee. This was a descriptive and analytical study. The sample size included 100 cases. In this study the diagnostic value of MRI with PDFS sequence and common methods (T2 GRE) evaluated and compared with each other. Considering the arthroscopy results as a gold standard, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV) and accuracy of the different sequences were calculated. This study included 100 patients; 79 males (79%) and 21 females (21) with a mean age of 27.8±9.04 years. Sensitivity, specificity, PPV,NPV and accuracy of sequences for detection of medial meniscal tear were 96.05%, 95.83%, 98.64%, 88.46% and 96% respectively, and for lateral meniscal tear was 90%, 100%, 100%, 100% and 97%. All the above mentioned parameters in ACL tears were 100%. PDFS sequence can be used in the evaluation of knee injuries as a reliable part of the knee imaging protocol and can be a good alternative for the non-fat-suppressive sequences in these patients.