Measuring Water T2 and Water:fat Signal Ratios with MR Spectroscopy (TEA-PRESS) and Chemical Shift Imaging (IDEAL): Preliminary Results in Phantoms and Breast Cancer Chemotherapy Patients

David John Manton¹, Gary Paul Liney¹, Peter Gibbs¹, Martin Lowry¹, Martin Darren Pickles¹, Lindsay W. Turnbull¹

Water and fat T2s, and water content (water signal / sum of water and fat signals) were measured in nine breast cancer patients prior to neoadjuvant chemotherapy using MR spectroscopy (TEA-PRESS) and chemical shift MRI (IDEAL). IDEAL, with greater spatial resolution, detected legion heterogeneity, but its T2 values were systematically higher than the TEA-PRESS values by a factor of 1.69. IDEAL water content values appeared to be overestimated for low values (<60%) and underestimated for higher values (>80%). Investigations are underway to determine the underlying reasons for these errors which should permit a thorough, theoretical correction of the data.