Adrianus J. Bakermans1, Chang Ho Wessel2, Paul F.C. Groot1, Erik S.G. Stroes2, and Aart J. Nederveen1
1Department of Radiology, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2Department of Vascular Medicine, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Typically, dynamic MR studies of exercising
skeletal muscle are limited to measurements of only one parameter. Obtaining
multiple parameters simultaneously during a single experiment would provide
more insight into (patho-)physiology. Here, we report on interleaved
acquisitions of quantitative T2* maps for assessments of
the BOLD response, and 31P-MR spectra for measuring phosphocreatine
recovery kinetics during an exercise-recovery protocol in healthy subjects and peripheral
artery disease (PAD) patients. We demonstrate that with such interleaved
acquisitions, it is feasible to dynamically assess both tissue oxygenation as
well as muscle energy metabolism in the human calf muscle during a single
exercise session.