Jerome L. Ackerman1,2,
Yaotang Wu2,3, Timothy G. Reese1,2, Haihui Cao2,3,
Mirko I. Hrovat4, Steven P. Toddes5, Rostislav A.
Lemdiasov5
1Martinos
Center, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown,
MA, USA; 2Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; 3Department
of Orthopedic Surgery, Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA; 4Mirtech,
Inc., Brockton, MA; 5InsightMRI, Inc., Leominster, MA, USA
Solid state MRI requires fast recovery of the scanner receiver in order to capture short T2 signals with good fidelity. To circumvent the unacceptably long 31P receiver recovery time of a clinical scanner, we developed a frequency converter utilizing the fast recovery of the proton channel to acquire solid state 31P images of high quality. In effect, a special RF front end is interposed between the scanner and the 31P RF coil. Isotropic 3D 31P images of the bones of the wrists of volunteers were obtained with SNR ~30 in typically 37 min at 3T, exhibiting spatial resolution of ~5mm.