Reproducibility Evaluation of Liver Metabolite Parameters: 1H Decoupled - 31P MRSI of Normal Volunteers at 1.5T

Jing Qi¹, Amita Shukla-Dave¹, Jason Koutcher¹, Mithat Gnen², Yuman Fong³, Lawrence H. Schwartz⁴, Kristen L. Zakian⁵

In order to evaluate reproducibility of liver metabolites measured by ¹H decoupled-³¹P MRSI technique, 13 normal subjects were investigated twice at 2 weeks interval. Concentration of PE, PC, PME, Pi, GPE, GPC, PDE and NTP were calculated. Inter- and intra- subject variations were analyzed. Inter- and intra-subject coefficient variation ranged from 11% to 25 % for all metabolite concentration. Intra-subject reproducibility was not superior to inter-subject reproducibility, indicating that the random biological differences dont seem to exceed the differences generated by technical variation in normal volunteers. Both technical and biological factors should be considered when interpret liver ³¹P MRSI data.