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High quality three‐dimensional gagCEST imaging of in vivo human knee cartilage at 7 Tesla
Author(s) -
Krishnamoorthy Guruprasad,
Nanga Ravi Prakash Reddy,
Bagga Puneet,
Hariharan Hari,
Reddy Ravinder
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
magnetic resonance in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.696
H-Index - 225
eISSN - 1522-2594
pISSN - 0740-3194
DOI - 10.1002/mrm.26265
Subject(s) - knee cartilage , cartilage , magnetic resonance imaging , nuclear magnetic resonance , gradient echo , magnetization transfer , materials science , biomedical engineering , articular cartilage , nuclear medicine , medicine , anatomy , osteoarthritis , radiology , physics , pathology , alternative medicine
Purpose To develop a new faster and higher quality three‐dimensional (3D) gagCEST MRI technique for reliable quantification of glycosaminoglycan (GAG) present in the human knee cartilages. Methods A new magnetization‐prepared 3D gradient echo‐based MRI pulse sequence has been designed to obtain the B 0 inhomogeneity, B 1 inhomogeneity, and CEST Z‐spectra images. Results The gagCEST values of different compartments of knee cartilage are calculated using a newly developed technique for healthy subjects and a symptomatic knee cartilage degenerated subject. The effect of the acquired CEST saturation frequency offset step‐size was investigated to establish the optimal step‐size to obtain reproducible gagCEST maps. Our novel 3D gagCEST technique demonstrates markedly higher gagCEST contrast value than the previously reported 3D gagCEST studies. This study demonstrates the need for separate B 0 and B 1 inhomogeneity estimation and correction. Conclusion The new technique provided high quality gagCEST maps with clearer visualization of different layers of knee cartilage with reproducible results. Magn Reson Med 77:1866–1873, 2017. © 2016 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine