Effect of Water Diffusion on Intra-Renal Oxygenation Quantification

Xiang He¹, Serter Gumus¹, Ayaz Aghayev¹, Kyongtae Ty Bae¹

While MR-based renal quantitative BOLD (qBOLD) can provide in vivo, absolute assessment of intra-renal oxygenation, the effect of water diffusion to the accuracy of renal qBOLD estimation has not been investigated. In this study, we compared the gradient-echo versus spin-echo acquisitions for the quantification of intra-renal oxygenation using the qBOLD technique. The estimated intra-renal oxygenation level was significantly higher with the spin-echo based acquisition, suggesting the potential role of water diffusion in renal qBOLD quantification.