Learning objectives
-To remember the anatomy of the knee in the pediatric age.
-To review the bone maturation process and its normal appearance.
-To describe diverse non-traumatic entities that can affect the knee,
with special interest in magnetic resonance (MRI) findings.
Background
knee pain in children is a common reasonto seek medical attention.
Imaging findings of the pediatric Knee differ from those found in adults,
due to the process of skeletal maturation and the diversity of pathologies that affect this age range.
Based on a wide variety of cases collected in our center,
we describe how to recognize common pediatric developmental variants and specific findings of congenital,
inflammatory,
infectious and neoplastic conditions.
Findings and procedure details
NORMAL SKELETAL MATURATION
The epiphyses,
at the distal ends of the tubular bones,
are located between the primary physis (growth plate) and the joint.
Initially,
the epiphysis is formed entirely by cartilage,
inside which,
the secondary ossification center will appearFig. 1 [1]
At birth hematopoietic bone marrow (BM) is present throughout the entire skeleton.
The hematopoietic BM shows low signal intensity in the T1-weighted sequences and high signal intensity in the T2-weighted sequences (less than the fluid and similar to the muscle).
During the first...
Conclusion
The pediatric knee joint disorders are frequent.
The knowledge of the developmental variants and frequent pathological conditions in the pediatric knee is important to accurate the diagnosis.
References
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Kara G.
Gill,
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Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Pediatric Knee.
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