Table 1.

MRI acquisition parameters for the “low-SNR” and “high-SNR” multi-echo spin-echo sequences. Please note that although 10 echo times were initially sampled, only the first 7 echoes were used for the T2 fitting because of insufficient SNRs in the last echoes. The choice of echo times was guided by the Osteoarthritis Initiative study [39]. Abbreviations: MESE = Multi-echo spin-echo, SENSE = Sensitivity Encoding.

	“Low-SNR” Sequence	“High-SNR” Sequence
Sequence Type	2D MESE
Orientation	Axial
Repetition Time [ms]	500
Echo Times [ms]	$\{10+n\cdot 10| n=0,1,\mathrm{..6}\}$
Field of View [mm]	140 × 140
Acquisition Matrix	512 × 512
Reconstruction Matrix	512 × 512
Scan percentage [%]	100
Flip angle [°]	90
Number of Signal Averages [n]	1	4
SENSE Factor	3	1
Slices [n]	1
Slice Thickness [mm]	2
Duration [min:s]	2:15	26:34