Repeatability of Measured Lactate and Other Metabolites in Patients with Astrocytoma

Mary McLean¹, Amy Sun², Radha Railkar², Andrea Schaeffer², Thomas Bradstreet², Haiying Liu², Rose-ann Blenman-Abange², Ilse Joubert³, Stephen Price³, Charlotte Hodgkin³, John Griffiths¹

We implemented lactate editing at 3T using BASING pulses and assessed its repeatability in phantoms and in human brain tumours in vivo to estimate the level of lactate and other metabolites . In phantoms, a coefficient of variation of 11% was achieved for lactate with SNR similar to in vivo. In tumours, lactate was detected, and there was a non-significant trend of lower metabolite concentrations in scan 2 than scan 1. Lactate editing may provide a useful means of simultaneously monitoring lactate, choline and lipids in vivo, all of which are of interest in tumour progression and response to treatment.