3D Mapping of Creatine Kinase Reaction Rates and Metabolic Fluxes in the Human Calf Muscle at 3T

Ding Xia¹, Prodromos Parasoglou¹, Gregory Chang¹, Ravinder R. Regatte¹

The creatine kinase (CK) reaction plays an important role in provision and transport of ATP. Alteration in the kinetics of the CK has been associated with many diseases, such as diabetes, inflammatory myopathies and heart diseases. Non-invasive measurement of the forward CK reaction rate and metabolic flux can be achieved through phosphorous (³¹P) magnetization transfer (MT) techniques. In our study, we developed and implemented a novel three-dimensional ³¹P-MT imaging sequence on a 3T clinical scanner that maps forward CK reaction rate and metabolic flux among different calf muscles in clinically relevant times with relatively high spatial resolution.