Associations Between Ultrasonographic Measures Of Femoral Cartilage, Self-reported Function, And Walking Speed In Individuals With Medial Compartment Knee Osteoarthritis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Ultrasound has been used to evaluate femoral cartilage cross-sectional area (CSA) and echo intensity (EI) in young individuals without knee pathology. Yet it remains unknown if ultrasound derived measures of CSA and EI are associated with patient reported outcomes (PRO) and physical performance (habitual walking speed) in individuals with knee osteoarthritis (KOA). PURPOSE: To determine associations between ultrasonographic femoral cartilage CSA and EI, and PRO and habitual walking speed in individuals with medial compartment KOA. METHODS: Twenty-one individuals with medial compartment KOA (76% female, age = 61 ± 8 yr, BMI = 29.3 ± 4.0 kg/m2) participated in this study. Habitual walking speed was assessed over a 6-meter walkway using infrared timing gates. PRO were measured using the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index function subscale (WOMAC-Function). Participants were seated with their knees extended on an examination table for 45 minutes in order to unload the femoral cartilage and acquire a resting ultrasound image. Three images were acquired on the involved limb and the derived measures (CSA and SI) from the medial femoral cartilage were averaged. Separate, stepwise linear regression models were used to determine the associations between WOMAC-Function and walking speed (predictor variables) and the medial femoral cartilage CSA and EI (criterion variables) after accounting for BMI and Kellgren-Lawrence scores of the involved limb. RESULTS: Smaller CSA was associated with slower habitual walking speed (ΔR2=0.249, P=0.014) and greater EI was associated with worse WOMAC-Function (ΔR2=0.261, P=0.014). CONCLUSIONS: PRO and habitual walking speed are easily obtainable measures for clinicians and significantly associate with medial femoral cartilage CSA and EI measured using ultrasound. CSA and EI may provide valuable information about potential structural and compositional alterations in femoral cartilage in individuals with KOA. A comparison of ultrasound outcomes to previously established imaging modalities, such as MRI, is needed to determine the clinical significance of CSA and EI.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".