31P MRS at 7T Can be More Sensitive & Specific Than 1H MRS in Monitoring Breast Cancer Treatment

Dennis Klomp¹, Wybe van der Kemp¹, Mies Korteweg¹, Jannie Wijnen¹, Maurice van de Bosch¹, Peter Luijten¹

First the feasibility of detecting phospholipid metabolites in vivo in the human breast is demonstrated using ³¹P MRSI at 7T. Secondly, substantially higher levels of PE and GPE compared to PC and GPC in breast cancer tissue are shown, which may be the cause of increased signal increase at 3.2 ppm in the proton spectrum rather than total choline. Finally, alterations in phopholipid metabolism during neoadjuvant chemotherapy are observed that could not be detected with ¹H MRS. Therefore, ³¹P MRS at 7T seems a promising technique for monitoring breast cancer treatments with potentially a higher sensitivity than ¹H MRS.