Abstract #1715

Han E, Li X, Link T, Majumdar S

Degenerative disc disease is one of the causes of lower back pain. It has been suggested that T1rho relaxation time may probe changes of proteoglycan in the early stages of disc degeneration. In this study we aimed to develop a sagittal T1rho mapping technique and to evaluate its in vivo imaging feasibility. Six volunteers were studied at 3T. The T1rho values range from 61.5 ms to 135.1 ms. The average coefficient of variation was 5.64% for median T1rho values in all 16 discs. A volunteer who complained of lower back pain showed lower T1rho in S1-L5 and L4-L5 discs.