Jimin Ren1, Ivan Dimitrov1,2,
Changho Choi1, A. Dean Sherry1,3, Craig R. Malloy1,4
1Advanced Imaging Research
Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United
States; 2Philips Medical Systems, Cleveland, OH; 3Department
of Chemistry, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, United States; 4VA
North Texas Health Care System , Dallas, TX, United States
Lactate plays a crucial role in energy homeostasis in body. Elevated lactate can be an important marker of mitochondria disease, poor prognosis in acutely ill patients, or nutritional deficiency of thiamine. Lactate measurement by proton MRS is usually done by detecting the methyl resonance. In muscle, overlapping signals from lipids poses challenge to the effectiveness of this approach. Here we demonstrate that STEAM-based sequence with long echo time at 7T allows detection of lactate methine signal in exercised muscle in vivo. It is found that lactate decays very fast (half time 1.4 min) following 10 minutes of hand open-close exercise.