Getting More Out of 31P MRS of the Human Liver Moving from 1.5T to 3T

¹Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; ²Neuroradiology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; ³Philips Healthcare, Cleveland, OH, USA; ⁴Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA; ⁵Medicine, General Internal Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

An upgrade from 1.5T to 3T is expected to improve ³¹P liver MRS, but causes continuity problems in a longitudinal study. ISIS-localized and ¹H-decoupled ³¹P MR spectra, recorded with nearly identical acquisition parameters and localized volumes at 1.5T and 3T were analyzed for changes in quality and quantitation of metabolites. Relative signals of β-ATP and PME were the same for both fields, but different for other metabolites. Higher field yielded a marked improvement in potential to detect low level di-phosphate metabolites, individual phospho-monoesther (PME) and -phospho-diester peaks and enabled accurate measurement of intracellular pH from the inorganic phosphate shifts.