Session IX: Friday, February 2, 2007 307. MAGNETIZATION TRANSFER IN CARDIAC TRUEFISP IMAGING Oliver M. Weber, PhD, Klaus Scheffler, PhD, Oliver Bieri, PhD. University of Basel, Switzerland, Basel, Switzerland. Introduction: Recently, we showed that the rapid succession of high flip angle RF pulses in conventional balanced steady state free precession (bSSFP) sequences causes an on-resonancemagn...

Cross relaxation between macromolecular protons and water protons is known to be important in biologic tissue. In magnetic resonance (MR) imaging sequences, selective saturation of the characteristically short T2 macromolecular proton pool can produce contrast called magnetization transfer contrast, based on the cross-relaxation process. Selective saturation can be achieved with continuous wave...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE CNS tuberculosis may simulate other granulomas and meningitis on MR images. The purpose of this study was to improve the characterization of lesions in CNS tuberculosis and to assess the disease load using magnetization transfer (MT) imaging. METHODS A total of 107 tuberculomas in seven patients with or without meningitis and 15 patients with tuberculosis meningitis alo...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE DTI, magnetization transfer, T2*-weighted imaging, and cross-sectional area can quantify aspects of spinal cord microstructure. However, clinical adoption remains elusive due to complex acquisitions, cumbersome analysis, limited reliability, and wide ranges of normal values. We propose a simple multiparametric protocol with automated analysis and report normative data, an...

A method of performing magnetization transfer contrast (MTC) using a pulse sequence based on a series of on-resonance binomial pulses preceding a conventional spin-echo sequence has been recently described. We investigated this technique in the evaluation of circumscribed hepatic neoplasms on a 0.5 T imager. Conventional spin-echo imaging was performed in 18 patients with hepatic neoplasms, 15 ...

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE Muscle weakness is an important feature of multiple sclerosis and is responsible for much of the disability associated with that condition. Here, we describe the quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) attributes of the major intracerebral motor pathway--the corticospinal tract--in multiple sclerosis. To do so, we develop an intuitive method for creating and displaying ...

PURPOSE To compare a three-dimensional Fourier transform (3DFT) gradient-echo pulse sequence with magnetization transfer at a short echo time against standard 3DFT gradient-echo technique in the evaluation of cervical spondylosis, specifically addressing the effects of motion and susceptibility artifacts on the dimensions of the neural foramina and contrast at the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)-spin...

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) measurements of the lactate methyl proton in rat brain C6 glioma tissue acquired in the presence of an off-resonance irradiation field, analyzed using coupled Bloch equation formalism assuming two spin pools, demonstrated the occurrence of magnetization transfer. Quantitative analysis revealed that a very small fraction of lactate (f = 0.0012) is rotational...

PURPOSE To evaluate and compare the spin lock and magnetization transfer techniques in the differentiation of benign and malignant head and neck tumors at magnetic resonance (MR) imaging. MATERIALS AND METHODS Forty consecutive patients with histologically verified head and neck tumors (20 malignant and 20 benign tumors, including five infections) were studied with a 0.1-T MR unit. The spin l...

PURPOSE To compare image contrast and lesion conspicuity of enhancing intracranial lesions obtained with T1-weighted and magnetization transfer T1-weighted spin-echo sequences after administration of standard (0.1 mmol/kg body weight) and triple doses of gadobutrol. METHODS Twenty-four patients with a total of 34 enhancing intracranial lesions were studied with T1-weighted and magnetization t...