Neural Shape Modeling Reveals Early and Progressive Femoral Bone Shape and Cartilage Thickness Changes After Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction

作者：Anoosha Pai S, McKenzie S. White, Marianne S. Black, Katherine A. Young, Seth L. Sherman, Constance R. Chu, Ashley Williams, Garry E. Gold, Feliks Kogan, Brian A. Hargreaves, Akshay Chaudhari, Anthony A. Gatti · 发表于：medRxiv · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1101/2025.11.16.25340352 · 研究领域：Knee injuries and reconstruction techniques、Osteoarthritis Treatment and Mechanisms、Total Knee Arthroplasty Outcomes

ABSTRACT Objectives To assess early and longitudinal post-traumatic osteoarthritis (POTA) changes in the femoral bone and cartilage following after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR). Methods CLR and contralateral knees of 17 subjects (11M, 38±11years), and 17 matched healthy controls underwent 3T-MRI at 3-weeks, 3, 9, 18, and 30 months post-ACLR. Two neural shape models (NSMs)—B-NSM (bone-only) and BC-NSM (bone+cartilage), trained on the Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI), encoded femoral bone and cartilage shapes. The study endpoints were shape scores (B-Score, BC-Score), regional bone surface area, and cartilage thickness. Cross-sectional and longitudinal changes were assessed with linear mixed-effects models; ηp 2 evaluated sensitivity to change. Cosine similarity compared trajectories of progressive bone and cartilage shape changes in PTOA (this data) and idiopathic-OA (OAI data). Results At 3-weeks, ACLR knee B-Scores were significantly lower (p=0.010) than contralateral knees from surgical notchplasty. Over 30-months, ACLR knee B- and BC-Scores significantly increased (p<0.001, p<0.001) compared to baseline, with no significant change in scores of other knees. Bone surface area (η p 2 =0.01) increased from periarticular osteophyte lipping rather than subchondral plate enlargement, with concomitant region-specific femoral cartilage thinning and thickening (η p 2 =0.02). B-Score (η p 2 =0.45) was more sensitive to longitudinal change than BC-Score (η p 2...