Precise volumetry of human adipose tissue compartments by combining automatic post-processing algorithms and optimized MRI acquisition techniques

在过去的几年里，多个大型队列研究证明了胰岛素敏感性降低与人体某些脂肪组织区室的体积之间的显著相关性。胰岛素敏感性降低可导致广泛传播的疾病，如2型糖尿病和代谢综合征，后者可导致心脏骤停、中风、失明或肾功能不全等伴随疾病。因此，对身体脂肪组织区室进行精确和准确的体积评估对于风险评估和生活方式干预的监测是可取的。基于我们对主要脂肪组织区室的自动体积测量的初步工作，在存在严重信号不均匀（由相控阵线圈或射频干扰引起）的情况下，将开发新的可靠的脂肪组织评估程序。与许多其他方法相比，我们选择通过同时优化成像和评估技术来实现这一目标。此外，血管附近的小体积脂肪组织隔室或移动的外/心包隔室将被可靠地量化，因为它们在未来代谢研究中的作用预计是非常重要的。利用自适应相位展开和现代“压缩传感”技术加速数据采集的高选择性新方法有待开发。

During the last years multiple large-cohort studies proved a significant correlation between reduced insulin sensitivity and the volumes of some adipose tissue compartments of the human body. The reduced insulin sensitivity can lead to wide-spread diseases such as type 2 diabetes mellitus and the metabolic syndrome which can lead to concomitant diseases such as cardiac arrest, stroke, blindness or renal insufficiency. Therefore, a precise and accurate volumetric assessment of adipose tissue compartments of the body is desirable for risk estimation and for monitoring of lifestyle interventions. Based on our preliminary work on automatic volumetry of major adipose tissue compartments, new reliable procedures for assessment of fatty tissue in the presence of severe signal inhomogeneities (caused by phased-array coils or RF-interferences) are to be developed in the proposed project. In contrast to many other approaches we opt to achieve this by simultaneous optimizing of both, imaging and evaluation techniques. Furthermore, small-volume adipose tissue compartments in the vicinity of blood vessels or the moving epi-/pericardial compartments are to be quantified reliably, since their role in future studies of the metabolism is expected to be highly significant. New methods with high selectivity to fat using adapted phase unwrapping and acceleration of data acquisition by modern 'compressed sensing' techniques are to be developed.