Fu-Nien Wang1, Chin-Tien Lu1, Shin-Lei Peng1, Tzu-Chen Yeh2
1Department of Biomedical Engineering and Environmental Sciences, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan; 2Department of Medical Research and Education, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan
D2O was first proposed as a novel contrast agent for 1H MRI. Previously, D2O was used for perfusion imaging by receiving the deuterium signal. In this study, we alternatively measured the 1H signal reduction due to the replacement effect of deuterium. Because the signal sensitivity of 1H is about 100 times larger than deuterium, the SNR could be substantially increased by using this imaging strategy. Phantom and small animal experiments were conducted to proof the concept. Due to the non-toxicity and non-radioactivity, the D2O could be a potential contrast agent for clinical usage without the need of hardware upgrade.