Fabian J. Kratzer1,2, Sebastian Schmitter1,3, Armin M. Nagel1,4,5, Nicolas G. R. Behl6, Benjamin R. Knowles1, Peter Bachert1,2, Mark E. Ladd1,2,7, and Sebastian Flassbeck1
1Medical Physics in Radiology, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany, 2Faculty of Physics and Astronomy, Ruprecht-Karls University Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany, 3Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Braunschweig and Berlin, Germany, 4Institute of Radiology, University Hospital Erlangen, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Erlangen, Germany, 5Institute of Medical Physics, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität (FAU), Erlangen, Germany, 6Siemens Healthcare GmbH, Erlangen, Germany, 7Faculty of Medicine, Ruprecht-Karls University Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
Sodium relaxation times have been shown to be altered in several diseases.
However, due to short relaxation times and low in-vivo signal, measurement
times in sodium relaxometry on the order of 1h were reported for both, longitudinal
and transversal relaxation constants. In this work, a novel sodium relaxometry
method based on Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting (MRF) principles is
presented, which enables simultaneous quantification of T1, T2s*,
T2l*, T2* and ΔB0, with automatic distinction between bi- and
monoexponential transverse relaxation.
