Robert L. Greenman1, Xiaoen Wang1,
Howard A. Smithline2
1Radiology, Beth Israel
Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States; 2Emergency
Medicine, Bay State Medical Center, Tufts University School of Medicine,
Boston & Springfield, MA, United States
The structure, blood flow patterns and metabolism have wide spatial variations in healthy individuals and are further modified in disease states and with physical training. Current methods cannot provide a simultaneous assessment of multiple muscle beds in a human limb. To address this need we have evaluated a phosphorus-31 MRI method for measuring the post-exercise recovery time constant of phosphocreatine in all of the muscles in a cross-section of the human leg. The method agrees very closely with the current standard method of phosphorus-31 MR spectroscopy and is highly reproducible.