Ultrashort Echo Time Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping (UTE-QSM) of The Human Knee with Motion Registration

Motivation: There is a need for improving UTE-QSM in the human knee joint, which is prone to motion artifacts due to multiple repeated scans required for a short echo spacing. Goal(s): To investigate the efficacy of motion registration-based UTE-QSM for knee joint imaging. Approach: We employed rigid affine-based registration and non-rigid deformable registration based on B-spline as a pre-processing step for generating the QSM data. Results: It is seen that the registration process helps in reducing streaking artifacts and improving UTE-QSM of the knee joint. Impact: The UTE-QSM technique of the human knee joint is a potentially sensitive biomarker for the diagnosis of musculoskeletal diseases. Motion registration can improve the accuracy of UTE-QSM and hence likely enhance the diagnostic power.