The study included 20 healthy runners and 22 professional ice hockey players who underwent MRI scans of their sacroiliac joints. Blinded readers examined the MRIs for bone marrow edema. Researchers examined sacroiliac joint quadrants with “bone marrow edema and their distribution in eight regions: upper and lower ilium and sacrum, each subdivided into anterior and posterior.”
Here are four insights:
1. The study found the mean number of sacroiliac joint quadrants showing bone marrow edema in the runners was 3.1 before and following running; and 3.6 in the hockey players.
2. Researchers discovered athletes’ posterior lower ilium was most impacted, with the anterior upper sacrum coming in second.
3. On average, researchers identified bone marrow edema in three to four sacroiliac quadrants.
4. An enhanced understanding of bone marrow edema development can yield better MRI evaluation of joints in individuals with early axial spondyloarthritis.
“A ‘reference range’ of sacroiliac joint BME defining frequency and anatomical clustering in physically active healthy individuals helps establish data-driven thresholds to discriminate from the lesion spectrum seen on sacroiliac joint MRI in patients with early axial spondyloarthritis,” said Ulrich Weber, MD, lead study author.
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