A Two-Compartment (Bi-Exponential) T2 Phantom with Appropriate Fat-Proton Density Correction for Validation

Burkhard Mdler¹, Jrgen Gieseke², ³

Validation of quantitative multi-component relaxation methods remains a challenge for the lack of suitable phantoms with known parameters. We re-facilitate the use of a fat-water phantom that uses dairy cream to validate and address the accuracy of multi-exponential analysis techniques (data acquisition and analysis). The problem of different proton densities of milk fat and water was previously not taken into consideration. Depending on the dairy cream's fat composition, primarily their content of triacylglycerides (98% of milk fat), the error in the fractional estimates can easily exceed 10-20%. We suggest an easy correction method based on partial proton densities for fat and water.