Real Time Liquid State Polarization Measurements for in Vivo Exams Using Hyperpolarized 13C Compounds

Ileana Hancu¹, Randy Giaquinto¹, Robert Lenkinski², W Thomas Dixon¹

A hardware setup to allow real-time liquid state polarization (LSP) measurements from hyperpolarized compounds in the MRI magnet is presented. Three miniature transmit/receive Helmholtz coils, rigidly fixed to each other, are designed to surround the patient injection tube and create mutually orthogonal fields. The sensitivity of this setup in measuring signals from small 13C enriched samples (to constitute the reference for the hyperpolarization measurements) is demonstrated. The relative orientational invariance of the signal measurements is also shown, confirming that such a setup can achieve accurate LSP measurements.