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Quadrupolar jump‐and‐return pulse sequence for fluid‐suppressed sodium MRI of the knee joint at 7T
Author(s) -
Xia Ding,
Lee JaeSeung,
Regatte Ravinder R.
Publication year - 2018
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.27047
Subject(s) - pulse sequence , knee joint , cartilage , pulse (music) , nuclear magnetic resonance , osteoarthritis , contrast (vision) , materials science , in vivo , sequence (biology) , chemistry , nuclear medicine , physics , biomedical engineering , medicine , anatomy , surgery , pathology , optics , biology , alternative medicine , microbiology and biotechnology , detector , biochemistry
Purpose To demonstrate the feasibility of the so‐called quadrupolar jump‐and‐return (QJR) pulse sequence by assessing its performance on the contrast modification to knee cartilage and quality of fluid suppression in the knee joint in vivo at 7T. Methods The right knee joints of five healthy volunteers (3 males: mean age = 32.4 ± 1.3 years; 2 females: mean age = 27.9 ± 1.0 years; mean age = 30.6 ± 2.7 years) were scanned on a 7T scanner with variation of the delay in the QJR sequence from 1 ms to 5 ms. For one healthy volunteer, the QJR scan with the delay of 3 ms and the inversion‐recovery (IR) scan were performed. Numerical simulations were conducted to evaluate the effects of B 0 ‐ and B 1 ‐field inhomogeneities and residual quadrupolar couplings on fluid suppression and tissue contrast, respectively. Results The QJR sequence suppressed the fluid signal from the artery and produced the contrast of knee cartilage in vivo. Its performance was comparable to that of the conventional IR sequence. Numerical simulations suggested that the fluid suppression may not be affected much by field inhomogeneities but that a distribution of residual quadrupolar couplings and weak RF pulses may interfere with the clear interpretation of cartilage contrast. Conclusion This preliminary work demonstrated that the QJR pulse sequence produces contrast for knee cartilage while suppressing the fluid signal from the artery. The knee cartilage contrast and quality of fluid suppression obtained from the QJR sequence were comparable to those of the IR sequence. Magn Reson Med 80:641–647, 2018. © 2017 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.