Abstract #3457

Ultrashort Echo Time (UTE) Bi-Component Analysis of Bound and Free Water in Cortical Bone - A Field Dependence Study

Shihong Li¹,², Won C. Bae¹, Eric Chang¹, Sheronda Statum¹, Christine Chung¹, Graeme M. Bydder³, Jiang Du¹

¹Radiology, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA, United States; ²Huadong Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China; ³Radiology, University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA, United States

The existence of two distinct T2* components in cortical bone has been demonstrated in recent studies, where a bi-component model has proven to be superior to a single-component model in fitting ultrashort echo time (UTE) images of cortical bone with progressively increasing TEs. However, all these studies were performed on a clinical 3T whole body scanner. The field dependence of UTE bi-component analysis of cortical bone has not been studied. In this study we investigated how cortical bone bound and free water T2*s and their relative fractions change at 1.5 T and 3 T.