Assessment of Chemical Exchange Saturation Transfer Effects in Liver Tissue at 7T

Kejia Cai¹, Mohammad Haris¹, Anup Singh¹, Santosh Gaddam¹, Dania Daye¹, Kalli Grasley¹, Gerald Zsido II¹, Hari Hariharan¹, Ravinder Reddy¹

The objective of the present study was to determine the chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) effects of water signal in normal and pathological liver samples on 7T MR clinical scanner, ex-vivo. In all liver tissue samples, the z-spectra showed a dip around ~2.75ppm downfield to the bulk water resonance, suggestive of exchangeable proton at this frequency. The pathological tissues showed significantly higher CEST contrast compared to normal. We are hypothesizing that the formation of liver fibrosis in various disease conditions may be expressing metabolites with exchanging groups resonating at the observed CEST frequency.