Fluid Suppressed T1ρ Mapping of Human Liver on Clinical Scanners

Anup Singh¹, Mohammad Haris¹, Kejia Cai¹, Walter R. T. Witschey², Hari Hariharan¹, Ravinder Reddy¹

In the current study, MRI pulse sequence for fluid attenuated T1ρ mapping of human liver on clinical scanner was developed and implemented. Using this technique, we demonstrated the feasibility of single slice T1ρ mapping in a single breath hold on healthy volunteers. T1ρ mapping performed in single breath-hold minimized artifacts related to respiration motion as well as B₀ and B₁ in-homogeneities. In the normal liver, T1ρ relaxation times were found to be 45-60 ms and 42-48 ms on 1.5T and 3T scanners, respectively. Results from this study show the potential of quantifying biochemical changes in liver pathology using fluid suppressed T1ρ mapping.