Study on the relationship between tibial tuberosity to trochlear groove distance and patellofemoral cartilage degeneration among middle-aged and senior patients
YU Zi-chuan,ZHAO Hui,WAN Ye-da
First Department of Radiology, Tianjin Hospital, Tianjin 300142, China
Abstract:
Objective To investigate the relationship between the patellofemoral cartilage degeneration and tibial tuberosity to trochlear groove distance (TT-TG) among middle-aged and senior patients using knee MRI scanning. Methods 515 patients (55-75 years old) who underwent knee joint MRI scans in our hospital from September 2020 to December 2022 were selected. To carry out retrospective collection and analysis of whom had knee MRI scanning. The patellofemoral cartilage degeneration conditions were graded by two trained musculoskeletal radiologists under objective evaluation. The TT-TG distance was measured by use of GE workstation to post-process the knee axial position image. One-way analysis of variance or Kruskal-Wallis H test was used to compare the differences among the groups. Logistic regression analysis was applied to analyze whether TT-TG distance was an influencing factor for cartilage degeneration, and a receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC curve) was drawn for further analysis. Results There was statistical significance in TT-TG distance between the groups of patellar side cartilage degeneration and femoral trochlear side cartilage degeneration (P<0.05). The grading of patellar side cartilage degeneration was correlated with TT-TG distance (P=0.021); the grading of femoral trochlear side cartilage degeneration was not correlated with TT-TG distance (P=0.737). TT-TG distance had diagnostic significance in evaluating patellofemoral cartilage degeneration (AUC=0.583), yet with low diagnosability; it had no diagnostic significance with femur trochlear side cartilage degeneration (AUC=0.487). Conclusion TT-TG distance may have certain effect in predicting the patellofemoral cartilage degeneration stages, but no effect in making accurate prediction of femoral trochlear side cartilage degeneration.
