Abstract #2906

Comparison of gagCEST and sodium MRI in evaluating knee cartilage in vivo at 7 Tesla

Vladimir Mlynarik^1,2, Stefan Zbyn¹, Markus Schreiner³, Vladimir Juras¹, Pavol Szomolanyi¹, Didier Laurent⁴, and Siegfried Trattnig^1,2

¹Department of Biomedical Imaging and Image-Guided Therapy, High Field MR Center, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria, ²CD Laboratory for Clinical Molecular MR Imaging, Vienna, Austria, ³Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria, ⁴Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, Basel, Switzerland

There are several methodological and data processing issues in gagCEST, which complicate the translation of this method into clinical practice. For assessing performance of the gagCEST protocol optimized in our laboratory, corrected signal intensities from sodium images were used as a reference. The results demonstrate a good correlation between both methods, although the small magnitude of the gagCEST effect and the low resolution in sodium images require carefully optimized methodology and long measurement times. It can be concluded that the gagCEST method can be useful in evaluating early degeneration of articular cartilage at 7 Tesla.

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