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Abstract #4054

MRI and MRS Measurements of Intragastric Fat Spatial Distribution

Mahamoud Omar Hussein1, Luca Marciani2, Caroline L. Hoad1, Eleanor F. Cox1, Mary C. Stephenson1, Susan Pritchard1, Carolyn Costigan1, Pip Rayment3, Elisabetta Ciampi4, Asish Nandi3, Nick Hedges3, Paul Sanderson3, Harry P. F Peters5, Robin C. Spiller2, Penelope A. Gowland1

1Sir Peter Mansfield MR Centre, School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom; 2Nottingham Digestive Diseases Cetre, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom; 3Unilever Discover, Unilever, Shambrook, Bedfordshire, United Kingdom; 4Unilever Discover, Unilever Discover, Shambrook, Bedfordshire, United Kingdom; 5Unilever R&D Vlaardingen Research, Nutrition & Health, Vlaardingen, Netherlands


MRI allows fat and water components to be imaged separately, but quantifying them separately in vivo still not resolved. Proton spectroscopy (MRS) is widely used to determine the fat/water ratio of a sample; multi-echo DIXON can measure fat fraction at a much higher spatial resolution but the results may not be so quantitative. This initial study aims to compare MRS and mDIXON fat fraction estimates in vivo to determine the effect of fat microstructure on GI handling of emulsion meals. Two fat emulsions with different droplet size were used and evaluated them in vivo. The m-DIXON imaging method to determine the intragastric fat fraction of fat emulsion meals compares well with the gold standard spectroscopic method but is more informative since it provides three dimensional data on the whole stomach and allows more flexible post-processing