Abstract #1947

Measuring Composition of Bone Marrow by Partial Water and Fat Suppression Proton Projection MRI (WASPI) for Correction of X-Ray Measurement of Bone Mineral Density

Haihui Cao^1,2, Jerome Ackerman^2,3, Melvin Glimcher^1,2, Yaotang Wu^1,2

¹Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA; ²Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; ³Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

Quantitative computed tomography (QCT) is widely used for bone mineral density (BMD) measurements. The variable adipose content of the marrow has been cited to be a major source of measurement error. Knowing the actual marrow composition would help to correct this error. This preliminary study demonstrated that partial WASPI (suppressing either water or fat, but not both at the same time) can provide the information of the ratio of fat/water content in marrow accurately. Partial WASPI measurement can potentially applied in vivo, with an advantage of MRI images registered to QCT images three dimensionally.