Quantitative sodium MRI of the mouse prostate

✍ Scribed by Jamie Near; Robert Bartha

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 289 KB
• Volume: 63
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0740-3194
• DOI: 10.1002/mrm.22196

✦ Synopsis

A method was developed for quantitative sodium MRI of the mouse prostate at 9.4 T. A small loop-gap radiofrequency coil was constructed and dual-tuned to both the proton and sodium frequencies. The location and boundary of the mouse prostate were localized using high-resolution T 2 -weighted proton images, and sodium images were acquired with 1mm isotropic resolution using a short echo time (0.6 ms) and a long pulse repetition time (300 ms) for sodium density weighting with minimal T 1 and T 2 contrast. Sodium concentration in the prostate was estimated by comparing pixel intensities within the prostate to the pixel intensities in a pair of reference vials with known sodium concentrations, and a radiofrequency field inhomogeneity correction was performed based on field maps of a homogeneous phantom. In a group of five healthy, 5month-old BALB/c mice, the average sodium concentration within their prostates was measured to be 173 6 38 mM. Muscle tissue and bladder were also clearly visible in the sodium images, and their sodium concentrations were estimated to be