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Abstract #4615

Whole Body Fat Water Imaging at 3 Tesla Using Multi-Echo Gradient Echo

E. Brian Welch1,2, Johan Berglund3, Heidi J. Silver4, Kevin D. Niswender5, Morten Bruvold6, Joel Kullberg3, Lars Johansson3, Malcolm J. Avison1

1Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United States; 2MR Clinical Science, Philips Healthcare, Highland Heights, OH, United States; 3Department of Radiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden; 4Vanderbilt Center for Human Nutrition, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United States; 5Vanderbilt Diabetes Research and Training Center, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United States; 6MR Clinical Science, Philips Healthcare, Best, Netherlands


The potential of whole body MRI for visualizing adipose tissue distribution has long been recognized. More recently, multi-gradient-echo MR acquisitions have been successfully used at 1.5 Tesla to quickly acquire whole-body data sets. Automated segmentation and quantification of such whole-body fat images into subcutaneous and visceral adipose tissue compartments shows great promise as a tool in studies of obesity and other metabolic syndrome diseases such as diabetes. Most whole-body fat-water imaging has been performed at 1.5 Tesla. However, the availability and prevalence of higher strength 3 Tesla scanners, especially in research settings, justifies the pursuit of robust multi-gradient-echo sequences designed to operate at 3 Tesla. Here we present initial results of a 3T multi-gradient echo whole-body fat-water sequence.