Fat suppression magnetic resonance imaging of the triangular fibrocartilage complex - Comparison with spin echo, gradient echo pulse sequences and histology

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the triangular fibrocartilage complex (TFCC) of the wrist was performed in ten healthy volunteers using spin echo T1-weighted (SE-TI), fast spin echo T2-weighted (FSE-T2), gradient echo T2*-weighted (GRE-T2*) and fat suppression spin echo T1-weighted (FS-T1) images. The images were obtained in the coronal plane and were compared to the corresponding histological coronal sections obtained from five fresh frozen cadavers. In our analysis, the FS-T1 pulse sequence visualized the details of the TFCC best, followed by the GRE-T2* images. Delineation of the TFCC on the SE-T1 and the FSE-T2 was poor. The coronal morphology of the TFCC represented on the fat suppression image was almost identical to the corresponding histological sections. We conclude that the fat suppression MRI clearly shows the complex structure of the TFCC and is useful for the morphological evaluation of the TFCC.