Abstract #2041

In Vivo Potassium MRI of the Human Heart at 7.0 Tesla

Daniel Wenz¹, Armin Michael Nagel^2,3,4, Andre Kuehne⁵, and Thoralf Niendorf^1,5

¹Max Delbrueck Center for Molecular Medicine, Berlin, Germany, ²Institute of Radiology, University Hospital Erlangen, Erlangen, Germany, ³Division of Medical Physics in Radiology, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany, ⁴Institute of Medical Physics, University of Erlangen, Erlangen, Germany, ⁵MRI.TOOLS GmbH, Berlin, Germany

Potassium ions (K⁺) play a critical role in cardiac electrophysiology; changes in their concentration might reflect ongoing pathophysiological processes related to cardiovascular diseases. In vivo potassium (³⁹K) MRI, due to its extremely low sensitivity remains a major challenge. Here we investigated, for the first time, the feasibility of in vivo ³⁹K MRI of human heart in a healthy subject. To achieve this goal, we developed a custom-built ³⁹K/¹H RF coil, which is tailored for ³⁹K MRI of human heart at 7.0 Tesla. This approach facilitated ³⁹K MRI of human heart with an isotropic spatial resolution of 14.5 mm³ within a total scan time of 30 minutes.

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