Stefan Zbn1,
Vladimir Juras1, Henrik J. Michaely2, Xeni Deligianni3,
Oliver Bieri3, Stefan O. Schoenberg2, Siegfried
Trattnig1, Stefan Haneder2
1MR
Center of Excellence, Department of Radiology, Medical University of Vienna,
Vienna, Austria; 2Institute of Clinical Radiology and Nuclear
Medicine, University Medical Center Mannheim, Heidelberg University,
Mannheim, Germany; 3Division of Radiological Physics, Department
of Radiology, University of Basel Hospital, Basel, Switzerland
In this study, we employed high SNR provided by 7T for the in vivo measurements of cortico-medullary gradient in human kidneys for the first time. Compared to previous human kidney studies with nominal voxel sizes of 0.135-0.125 mL at 3T, the nominal voxel size was decreased to 0.080 mL and the image quality was improved at 7T. A steeper slope of corticomedullary gradient was observed at 7T compared to 3T. This study showed for the first time the feasibility of in vivo 23Na MRI of human kidneys at 7.0T using vTE-GRE sequence and confirmed the presence of corticomedullary gradient.
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