Preliminary Results on Bone Perfusion Measurement using Dynamic Contrast Enhanced Ultrashort TE Imaging

Olivier M. Girard¹, Jiang Du¹, Robert F. Mattrey¹, Graeme M. Bydder¹

Dynamic Contrast Enhanced MRI has been applied for micro-vascular characterization of various tissues such as brain lesions and tumors. So far its application to bone perfusion characterization has been limited to bone marrow studies due to the lack of detectable signal from cortical bone, which has extremely short T2 and therefore cannot be detected by conventional gradient echo sequences. Ultrashort echo time (UTE) sequences offer an opportunity to measure signal from cortical bone. In this preliminary study we report on the kinetic analysis of dynamic UTE imaging data of cortical bone acquired on healthy volunteers using a clinical 3T MR scanner.