Mary A. McLean1, Martin A. Janich2, 3, Ralph Noeske4, John R. Grififiths1, Steffen J. Glaser2, Rolf F. Schulte3
1Cambridge Research Institute, Cancer Research UK, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom; 2Dept of Chemistry, Technische Universitt Mnchen, Munich, Germany; 3GE Global Research, Munich, Germany; 4Research and Collaboration, GE Healthcare, Berlin, Germany
We examined the effect on lactate yield at 3T of incorporating broadband universal rotation by optimized pulses (BURBOP) into PRESS, in comparison with Shinnar-Le Roux (SLR) refocusing pulses. Lactate yield relative to N-acetyl aspartate in a large uniform phantom was found to be up to 97% of the theoretical maximum when using BURBOP refocusing pulses in conjunction with the overpress scheme for further reducing chemical shift misregistration. Without overpress, the yield was 87% for BURBOP pulses vs. 43% for SLR. Lactate signal using BURBOP pulses was also shown to be robust to B1 variation over a range of approximately 20%.