Abstract #1818

Fat Temperature Imaging with T1 of Fatty Acid Species Using Multiple Flip Angle Multipoint Dixon Acquisitions

Kagayaki Kuroda^1,2, Taku Iwabuchi, Mie Kee Lam³, Makoto Obara⁴, Masatoshi Honda⁵, Kensuke Saito, Marc Van Cauteren⁴, Yutaka Imai⁵

¹Graduate School of Engineering, Tokai University, Hiratsuka, Kanagawa, Japan; ²Medical Device Development Center, Foundation for Biomedical Research and Innovation, Kobe, Hyogo, Japan; ³Image Sciences Institute, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands; ⁴MR Marketing, Philips Electronics Japan Medical Systems, Shinagawa, Tokyo, Japan; ⁵Department of Radiology, Tokai University, Isehara, Kanagawa, Japan

A fat temperature imaging technique based on multiple flip angle, multipoint Dixon acquisitions and a least square estimation scheme is proposed. Gradient recalled acquisition of 5 echo times with 3 different flip angles were obtained to separate the signals of methylene and methyl protons and to estimate T1's of these fatty acid species. Temperature images of a water-oil phantom were successfully obtained with previously obtained temperature coefficients demonstrating the feasibility of quantitative thermometry of fat. Since the acquisition time was 4-6 second, the technique seemed to be practical for temperature monitoring of fat-water tissues like breast under thermal therapies.