Abstract #2465

In Vivo MR High Resolution T1rho Mapping of the Spine at 3T Using a Reduced-FOV Approach

Ajit Shankaranarayanan¹, Emine U. Saritas², Dwight G. Nishimura³, Weitian Chen¹, Eric Han¹

¹Global Applied Science Lab, GE Healthcare, Menlo Park, CA, United States; ²Dept of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, United States; ³Dept of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, United States

It has been suggested that MR T1 relaxation time may potentially be valuable to assess proteoglycan (PG) loss in the early stages of disc degeneration, a known cause for back pain. Previous T1 mapping techniques have shown this to be true. However, clinical applicability of these techniques in spine is somewhat limited by either long scan time, lower resolution or insufficient coverage. This work aims to overcome these limitations by applying reduced-FOV technique, previously shown for diffusion imaging to T1 imaging. In vivo experiments have been performed on 3T to show the usefulness of such a targeted approach in terms of higher resolution and shorter scan times while providing good coverage in spine.