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Factors affecting the chemical exchange saturation transfer of Creatine as assessed by 11.7 T MRI

Radiological Physics and Technology volume 8, pages 146–152 (2015)Cite this article

Abstract

Chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) is a new contrast enhancement approach for imaging exogenous or endogenous substances such as creatine (Cr), amide protons, and glutamate in the human body. An increase in field strength is beneficial for CEST imaging because of the increased chemical shift and longer longitudinal relaxation time (T1). In high-field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), establishing and evaluating the CEST effect is important for optimizing the magnetization transfer (MT) saturation radio frequency (RF) pulses. In this study, the CEST effect on Cr was evaluated at different concentrations in pH phantoms by appropriately selecting MT saturation RF pulses using 11.7 T MRI. The results showed that the CEST efficiency increased gradually with increasing applied saturation RF pulse power and that it was affected by the number of saturation RF pulses and their bandwidths. However, spillover effects were observed with higher saturation RF pulse powers. In conclusion, we successfully performed in vitro Cr CEST imaging under optimized conditions of MT saturation RF pulses.

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Abbreviations

CEST:

Chemical exchange saturation transfer

Cr:

Creatine

MRI:

Magnetic resonance imaging

MRS:

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy

MT:

Magnetization transfer

MTR:

Magnetization transfer ratio

RARE:

Rapid acquisition with relaxation enhancement

RF:

Radio frequency

T1 :

Longitudinal relaxation time

T2W:

T2-weighted images

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Mr. Junpei Ueda, Mr. Hisato Sasahara and Mr. Isamu Yabata (Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Japan) for technical assistance. This work was partly supported by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (Kakenhi, Nos. 24791299 and 24300167) by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Author information

Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Physics and Engineering, Division of Medical Technology and Science, Faculty of Health Science, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, 1-7 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka, 565-0871, Japan

    Shigeyoshi Saito & Kenya Murase

  2. Center for Information and Neural Networks (CiNet), National Institute of Information and Communications Technology and Osaka University, 1-4 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka, 565-0871, Japan

    Shigeyoshi Saito, Yuki Mori, Yoshichika Yoshioka & Kenya Murase

  3. Biofunctional Imaging Laboratory, Immol/Lunology Frontier Research Center (WPI-IFReC), Osaka University, 3-1 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka, 565-0871, Japan

    Yuki Mori & Yoshichika Yoshioka

  4. RIKEN Center for Life Science Technologies (CLST), 6-7-3Minatojima-minamimachi, Chuo-ku, Kobe, Hyogo, 650-0047, Japan

    Nobuyoshi Tanki

Authors
  1. Shigeyoshi Saito
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  2. Yuki Mori
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  3. Nobuyoshi Tanki
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  4. Yoshichika Yoshioka
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  5. Kenya Murase
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Correspondence to Shigeyoshi Saito.

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Saito, S., Mori, Y., Tanki, N. et al. Factors affecting the chemical exchange saturation transfer of Creatine as assessed by 11.7 T MRI. Radiol Phys Technol 8, 146–152 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12194-014-0303-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12194-014-0303-0

Keywords

  • Chemical exchange saturation transfer
  • Creatine
  • Magnetization transfer
  • Spillover effect