Quantitative Cartilage Imaging in Knee Osteoarthritis

Table 1

Morphological (metrics), statistical, and anatomical (region of interest) labels commonly used in cartilage morphology publications on the knee.

Abbreviation	Explanation	Unit
Morphological (metrics) label
VC	volume of the cartilage	(mm^3/mL)
tAB	total area of subchondral bone	(cm^2)
AC	area of cartilage surface	(cm^2)
cAB	area of tAB covered by AC	(cm^2)
dAB%	percent of tAB denuded (not covered by AC)	(%)
VCtAB	volume of the cartilage divided by tAB	(mm)
ThCtAB	thickness of the cartilage over the entire tAB	(mm)
ThCcAB	thickness of cartilage over cAB	(mm)
dAB%	percent of tAB denuded (not covered by AC)	(%)
VCtAB	volume of the cartilage divided by tAB	(mm)
ThCtAB	thickness of the cartilage over the entire tAB	(mm)
ThCcAB	thickness of cartilage over cAB	(mm)
Statistical labels
Me	mean (i.e., thickness)
Max	maximum (i.e., thickness)
Mav	maximal averaged, for example, mean of the top 1% values
Min	minimum (i.e., thickness)
Miv	minimum averaged, for example, mean of the lowest 1% values
SD	standard deviation (i.e., thickness)
CV%	coefficient of variation (i.e., thickness)
c(Me, Mav)	thickness measured from cartilage surface (AC) to bone interface (tAB)
b(Me, Mav)	thickness measured from bone interface (tAB) to cartilage surface (AC)
a(Me, Mav)	average of the two above (b, c)
Anatomical (region of interest) labels
Total cartilage plates
P	Patella
MT	Medial tibia
LT	Lateral tibia
F	Femur
TrF	Femoral trochlea
MF	Medial femoral condyle
cMF	weight-bearing portion of MF
pMF	posterior portion of MF
LF	Lateral femoral condyle
cLF	weight-bearing portion of LF
pLF	posterior portion of LF
MFTC	aggregate values for MT and cMF (MT + cMF)
LFTC	aggregate values for LT and cLF (LT + cLF)
Subregions (to be combined with above total plate labels, i.e., cMT or ccMF)
c	central
e	external
i	internal
a	anterior
p	posterior

For anatomical (region of interest) labels, also see Figures 1 and 2.