ROTATING FRAME RELAXATION MEASUREMENTS IN HUMAN LIVER ON CLINICAL SCANNERS

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. Primary support for the subproject and the subproject's principal investigator may have been provided by other sources, including other NIH sources. The Total Cost listed for the subproject likely represents the estimated amount of Center infrastructure utilized by the subproject, not direct funding provided by the NCRR grant to the subproject or subproject staff. Extracellular matrix (ECM) is the main component of liver tissue and macromolecules like collagen, proteoglycan, elastin etc are major constituents of ECM. Currently, invasive biopsy of the liver tissue is the gold standard for staging liver fibrosis. While the use of MRI based techniques such as MR elastography as a non-invasive means to diagnose and grade hepatic fibrosis has been shown they require additional device for shear wave generation. T1¿-weighted (T1¿-W) MRI is an emerging technique for exploring the biochemical changes in different pathologies. In spite of significant potential of T1¿ technique to quantify early macromolecule changes related to disease, it hasn't been explored in-vivo liver tissue due to experimental challenges such as respiratory motion, specific absorption rate (SAR), and B0 and B1 field in-homogeneities. In the current study, our objective was to develop and implement a novel T1¿ imaging technique capable of T1¿ mapping of liver in a single breath- hold without exceeding SAR limits on 1.5T and 3T clinical scanners. T1¿ study was also carried on ex-vivo tissues both normal and fibrotic.