Abstract #2227

Mun C, Eun C, Hu X, Heberlein K, Metwalli N, Zhou L, Nana R

The aim of this study is to assess the feasibility of ex vivo Diffusion Tensor Magnetic Resonance Imaging (DT-MRI) as a diagnosis tool for gastric cancer. Human gastric tissues resected from patients and fixed in 10% formalin solution were used as specimens. High-resolution 3D diffusion weighted Turbo STEAM is implemented on Trio 3.0-T MRI (Siemens, Germany) system with a hand made small specimen coil (I.D. = 74 mm, quadrature-birdcage type, Tx/Rx mode). The sagittal view of a b zero image, diffusion weighted, apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) map, and fractional anisotropy (FA) color map of a cross sectional normal gastric tissue are generated. The muscle layer can be discriminated from other mucosal and submucusal layers of the gastric tissues in all images. The FA map provides more detail information on the muscle fiber directionalities. The study shows the possibilities of the 3D Turbo STEAM diffusion tensor imaging and can be used as a diagnostic method of gastric cancer disease.