Clinical Prostate T1 Quantification Using a Magnetization-Prepared Spiral Technique

Warren Foltz¹, Masoom Haider^2,3, Peter Chung¹, Andrew Bayley¹, Charles Catton¹, Venkat Ramanan⁴, David Jaffray¹, Graham Wright⁴, Cynthia Mnard¹

A magnetization-prepared spiral imaging strategy with RF cycling has been adapted for time-efficient multi-slice clinical prostate T1 quantification at 1.5T. In vitro testing validated an overall robustness to RF offsets. Pilot studies in patients without prior external beam radiation demonstrated an equivalence between zonal T1, with reduced T1 in peripheral zone tumors. Intra-patient zonal T1 variabilities motivate individial measurements for dynamic studies of vascular metrics. SNR analysis identified useful region volumes for thermal-noise insensitive measurements, to guide protocol design for future voxel-based prostate T1 mapping. High RF insensitivity combined with time-efficiency suggests method potential for robust implementation on stronger magnets.