Abstract #1489

In Vivo Sodium Imaging of Kidney using 3D Ultrshort Echo Time Sequence

Raffi Kalayciyan¹, Friedrich Wetterling¹, Sabine Neudecker², Lothar R. Schad¹

¹Computer Assisted Clinical Medicine, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany; ²Medical Research Center, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany

Tissue sodium concentration (TSC) serving as a biomarker for tissue viability and integrity has been investigated using the 3D-Ultrashort Echo Time (3D-UTE) to explore the corticomedullary sodium concentration gradient in the rat kidney. For the first time, 3D-UTE allowed TE as short as 60s to record 23Na MR images of rats kidneys. Hence, the low SNR in sodium renal MRI has been improved over currently used 3D-GRE imaging technique by factor 3 for in vivo 23Na MRI which will enable the measurement of TSC as a marker for tissue viability and tissue integrity changes after kidney transplant.