Non-inferiority assessment of accelerated knee MRI protocols in routine clinical practice

Motivation: Accelerated MRI protocols can improve patient comfort, and reduce costs but maintaining diagnostic accuracy is essential. Goal(s): To assess the non-inferiority of two accelerated knee MRI protocols compared to a standard protocol for detecting common internal derangement injuries of the knee. Approach: Patients were scanned with one of three 3T MRI protocols. Sensitivity and specificity were calculated for tears of the medial meniscus (MM), lateral meniscus (LM) and ACL. Non-inferiority was defined as an upper 95% confidence interval bound of ≤5%. Results: Preliminary results show non-inferiority for MM sensitivity, LM specificity and ACL sensitivity and specificity in S2P2 and S2P3, supporting clinical use. Impact: This study demonstrates that accelerated knee MRI protocols can maintain diagnostic accuracy for meniscal and ACL tear detection, supporting their use in clinical practice to improve efficiency without compromising patient care.