Xiaolei Song1,
2, Jiadi Xu1, 2, Shuli Xia3, Nirbhay
N. Yadav1, 2, Bachchu Lal3, Jeff W.M. Bulte,
24, John Laterra3, Peter C.M. van Zijl1, 2,
Michael T. McMahon1, 2
1Division
of MR Research, The Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and
Radiological Science, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United
States; 2F.M. Kirby Research Center for Functional Brain Imaging,
Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD, United States; 3Department
of Neuro-Oncology, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD, United States; 4Division
of MR Research, The Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and
Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States
Chemical Exchange Saturation Transfer (CEST) has become an important method to generate MRI contrast, with applications in the imaging of strokes and cancer. We present an efficient CEST imaging method, named Multi-echo Length and Offset VARied Saturation (Me-LOVARS), which allows acquiring a series of Z-spectra at multiple tsat values, without extra scan time cost. When using Me-LOVARS for imaging mice baring glioblastomas, 3 Z-spectra with saturation length of 0.8sec., 1.6sec. and 2.4sec were acquired, using same time as one conventional Zspectrum. The contrast-noise-ratio of B0-corrected MTRasym maps using Me-LOVARS is also comparable to the conventional method with the same tsat.