Water-Fat Imaging of Supraclavicular Brown and White Adipose Tissue at 1.5T: Initial Results in Healthy Volunteers

Elin Lundstrm¹, Johan Berglund¹, Lars Johansson¹, ², Peter Bergsten³, Hkan Ahlstrm¹, Joel Kullberg¹

The purpose of this work was to set up and evaluate high resolution mapping of fat fraction and R2* for brown adipose tissue (BAT) detection on a clinical 1.5T MR-scanner. Water-fat imaging of the supraclavicular region was performed in ten volunteers (age [19-44], 5 males). Properties of subcutaneous and suspected BAT depots were compared both visually and using ROI measurements, with different approaches to reduce partial volume effects. The images allowed detection of tissue differences, both visually and using measurements. The importance of considering partial volume effects was demonstrated and a correlation between BMI and fat fraction measurements was noted.