Echo Planar Based J Resolved & Correlated Spectroscopic Imaging of Human Prostate using External Coil

Rajakumar Nagarajan¹, Jonathan Furuyama¹, Daniel Margolis¹, Steven Raman¹, Manoj Kumar Sarma¹, Michael Albert Thomas¹

Prostate cancer (PCa) is associated with lower levels of citrate (Cit) and higher levels of choline (Cho) than those in benign prostatic hyperplasia or healthy prostate tissues. Due to the overlap of Cho with creatine resonances, it is difficult to measure spermine resonances in the prostate clearly by single-and multi-voxel based one-dimensional spectroscopic imaging. We have implemented and evaluated the novel echo-planar imaging based four dimensional (4D) MRSI sequences (J-resolved spectroscopic imaging (EP-JRESI) and correlated spectroscopic imaging (EP-COSI)) in the prostate using 3T MRI scanner. The pilot findings in six healthy males using the external phased-array matrix will be presented.