Abstract #3998

Sodium In Vivo Measurement of T1 and T2* Relaxation Times of Articular Cartilage at 7 Tesla

Stefan Zbyn¹, Vladimir Juras^1,2, Wolfgang Bogner¹, Pavol Szomolanyi^1,2, Goetz H. Welsch¹, Michal Bittsansky¹, Vladimir Mlynarik³, Ewald Moser¹, Siegfried Trattnig¹

¹MR Centre of Excellence, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria; ²Institute of Measurement Science, Department of Imaging Methods, Bratislava, Slovakia; ³Laboratory for Functional and Metabolic Imaging (LIFMET), Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

In this study we employed the standard spoiled gradient echo sequence (GRE) to investigate sodium T₁ and slow component of T₂* (T_2S*) relaxation times at 7 Tesla in vivo. We demonstrated the feasibility of sodium relaxation times measurements using GRE sequence and reported sodium T₁ and T_2S* times in good agreement with previously published values. Since the standard deviation of relaxation times of cartilage and homogenous phantoms are comparable, we believe that the range of observed relaxation times of cartilage is also small. Therefore we can expect that this method will be useful in detecting early stages of osteoarthritis.