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Abstract #0719

Measuring the Concentration of Contrast Agent in Blood for DSC MRI from the Extra-Vascular Phase Shift

Samuel James Wharton1, Natalia Petridou1, Ashley E. Lotfipour1, Penny A. Gowland1, Richard Bowtell1

1Sir Peter Mansfield Magnetic Resonance Centre, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK


Recently, it has been shown that the susceptibility of a uniform object with arbitrary geometry can be quantified by least-squares fitting phase data measured in gradient echo imaging to a simulated field-shift. The large phase shifts associated with blood vessels, amplified in the presence of paramagnetic contrast agents, provide ample information for such a fitting process to be applied in-vivo. Here, we present a robust method for directly calculating the susceptibility of blood in the human brain from extra-vascular phase data and describe its application in Dynamic Susceptibility Contrast MRI experiments at 7T.