Sodium is an important electrolyte in the human body and is a distinct MRI contrast mechanism in breast cancer as it provides insight on cellular viability, ion homeostasis, inflammation, and fluid content. Due to sodium low SNR, intracellular sodium concentration (C1), volume fractions for the intracellular (α1) or extracellular compartments (α2), and fluid (α3) remain largely unexplored. We built a custom bilateral dual-tuned 1H/23Na RF coil and developed a novel fingerprinting-based sodium excitation scheme on a 7T system to enable multi-compartmental sodium quantification in breast. In this work we describe the coil, pulse sequence and preliminary results in one subject.
This abstract and the presentation materials are available to members only; a login is required.