Insight into the Quantitative Metrics of Chemical Exchange Saturation Transfer (CEST) Imaging

Overview

Journal Magn Reson Med

Publisher Wiley

Specialty Radiology

Date 2016 May 13

PMID 27170222

Citations 50

Authors

Hye-Young Heo

Dong-Hoon Lee

Yi Zhang

Xuna Zhao

Shanshan Jiang

Min Chen

Jinyuan Zhou

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate the reliability of four CEST imaging metrics for brain tumors, at varied saturation power levels and magnetic field strengths (3-9.4 Tesla (T)).

Methods: A five-pool proton exchange model (free water, semisolid, amide, amine, and NOE-related protons) was used for the simulations. For the in vivo study, eight glioma-bearing rats were scanned at 4.7 T. The CEST ratio (CESTR), CESTR normalized with the reference value (CESTR ), inverse Z-spectrum-based (MTR ), and apparent exchange-related relaxation (AREX) were compared.

Results: The simulated CEST signal intensities using MTR and AREX were substantially increased at relatively high radiofrequency (RF) saturation powers at 3 T and 4.7 T, whereas CESTR and CESTR metrics remained relatively stable. There were tremendously high MTR and AREX signals around the water frequency at all field strengths because of the small denominators. In the rat tumor study at 4.7 T, both CESTR and CESTR showed clear contrasts in the tumor with respect to the normal tissue across all saturation power levels (0.5-3 μT), whereas the AREX showed negligible to negative insignificant contrasts.

Conclusions: CEST metrics must be carefully selected based on the different experimental settings. CESTR and CESTR are more reliable at 3 T (a clinical field strength) and 4.7 T. Magn Reson Med 77:1853-1865, 2017. © 2016 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.

Citing Articles

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Pfluger I, Rastogi A, Casagranda S, Papageorgakis C, Behnisch R, Liebig P Eur Radiol. 2024; .

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