Kimberly L. Desmond1, Greg J. Stanisz1,2
1Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; 2Imaging Research, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
A clinically applicable, quantitative chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) technique was developed and demonstrated in a phantom containing 1M ammonium chloride. The fitting algorithm consisted of a two-pool compartmental model of the Bloch equations including exchange and pulsed off resonance excitation modeled by a piecewise constant approximation. The results of the fit provided estimates for T2a (T2 relaxation for the bulk water pool), M0c (size of the CEST pool relative to bulk water), T2c (T2 relaxation of CEST pool), and ω 0c (resonance frequency of the CEST pool).