System and apparatus for securing knee joint with a load for magnetic resonance imaging

A system for securing and loading a knee joint of a subject for reproducible magnetic resonance imaging (MM), the system comprising:

• a force sensor assembly adapted to monitor a load as applied on a subject's knee joint when the force sensor assembly remains in direct contact with the subject's lower extremity and the load is monitored from inside a main magnet of an MM scanner;
• a mobile unit comprising tracks configured to adjust a position of the force sensor assembly attached thereto;
• a stationary base on which the mobile unit and the force sensor assembly are located, the mobile unit translatable solely axially on the stationary base such that the subject's knee, as placed over the stationary base, remains in a fixed location axially inside the main magnet of the MRI scanner;
• and
• a processor coupled to the force sensor assembly and programmed to read information encoding the load being measured by the force sensor assembly, wherein an MM scan of the knee joint is initiated only when a pre-determined load has been applied to the subject's knee joint for a pre-determined period of time such that the subject's knee joint is reproducibly monitored under the pre-determined load.