Ping-Huei Tsai1, Alan C. Seifert1,
Alexander C. Wright1, Hamidreza S. Rad1, Jeremy F.
Magland1, Hee Kwon Song1, Mary B. Leonard2,
Felix W. Wehrli1
1Laboratory for Structural
NMR Imaging, Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, PA, United States; 2Center for Clinical Epidemiology
& Biostatistics, Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA,
United States
Osteomalacia is characterized by hypomineralization of bone, i.e., low phosphorus concentration, and a noninvasive means to assess bone phosphorus would be desirable. However, 31P MR signals from bone have low SNR due to extremely short T2* and long T1, as well as small gyromagnetic ratio. High-field scanners and 3D radial imaging sequences can mitigate these limitations. The purpose of this study was to design and evaluate the peformance a 3D radial imaging technique and customized RF coils to obtain in-vivo phosphorus images of human cortical bone at the mid-shaft tibia at 7T. Preliminary results demonstrate the methods feasibility and suggest the potential for quantitative measurements.