Assessment of the patellofemoral cartilage: Correlation of knee pain score with magnetic resonance cartilage grading and magnetization transfer ratio asymmetry of glycosaminoglycan chemical exchange saturation transfer

The pain scores were associated with the morphological and biochemical changes in articular cartilages visualized on knee MR images. The biochemical changes, visualized in terms of the MTRasym values of the gagCEST images, exhibited greater correlation with the pain scores than the morphological changes visualized on conventional MR images; these results provide evidence supporting the theory regarding the association of patellofemoral osteoarthritis with knee pain scores.