Introduction Injuries of the Achilles tendon (AT) are painful and can seriously hamper the activities of daily living.They may arise because of a variety of degenerative changes in the tendon composition including an increase in stiffness of the inter fascicular matrix, an increase in collagen cross-linking and a reduction in collagen fibril crimp angle [1, 2, 3].In the early stages of AT degeneration, it is difficult to detect the small morphological changes using ultrasound or conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).Relaxations Times such as T1 and...

Study group This prospective study was approved by the local Ethics Committee of our institution. Verbal and written informed consent was obtained from each patient. - Twenty-two subjects (female, 13; male, 9; right, 12; left, 10; mean age, 37.9±16.6 years; body mass index (BMI), 23.5±3.7 kg/ m2) were classified as normal group upon clinical and ultrasound assessment. - Twenty-six subjects (female, 20; right, 15; left, 11; male, 6; mean age, 49.31±14.66 years; BMI, 29.73±5.86 kg/ m2) were classified as patients goup with Achilles tendinosis. For...

Results The results of T1 and T2* imaging of the Achilles tendon of all 48 subjects were analyzed according to the normal and patient group. Axial and sagittal morphological images, T1 and T2* images of the AT are shown in figure 1. T1 and T2* mean values in each ROI of the AT for normal and patients group are summarized in table 2. Our results show a statistically significant differences of T1 and T2* values in normal group compared to the patients group (p<0.05). Means...

Our study showed that T1 and T2* relaxation times are relatively sensitive to degenerative changes in the AT. The T1 and T2* relaxation times are positively correlated with each other.

[1] Laura Chernak Slane & Jack Martin & Ryan De Wall & Darryl Thelen & Kenneth Lee, Quantitative ultrasound mapping of regional variations in shear wave speeds of the aging Achilles tendon, European Society of Radiology 2016. [2] Thorpe CT, Udeze CP, Birch HL et al, Capacity for sliding between tendon fascicles decreases with ageing in injury prone equine tendons: a possible mechanism for age-related tendinopathy? Eur Cell Mater (2013) 25:48 – 60. [3] Couppe C, Hansen P, Kongsgaard M et al (2009) Mechanical properties...