Abstract #4142

Sodium T2* Mapping of the Human Kidneys in Vivo at 7 Tesla

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

All previous reports on (sodium) 23Na T2* relaxation times in the kidneys were measured in animals and revealed slightly different values. In this study, we employed high SNR provided by 7T for the in vivo measurements of T2* relaxation times in human kidneys for the first time. Our T2* results are in good agreement with long T2* components published before. Moreover, similarly to the results from animal studies, we observed shorter T2* values in renal cortex compared to medulla. This data may provide the basis for absolute quantification of 23Na content in human kidneys.