• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.131-141
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• 2008

Purpose : To investigate the feasibility and accuracy of Proton Resonance Frequency (PRF) shift based magnetic resonance (MR) temperature mapping utilizing the self-developed center array-sequencing phase unwrapping (PU) method for non-invasive temperature monitoring. Materials and Methods : The computer simulation was done on the PU algorithm for performance evaluation before further application to MR thermometry. The MR experiments were conducted in two approaches namely PU experiment, and temperature mapping experiment based on the PU technique with all the image postprocessing implemented in MATLAB. A 1.5T MR scanner employing a knee coil with $T2^*$ GRE (Gradient Recalled Echo) pulse sequence were used throughout the experiments. Various subjects such as water phantom, orange, and agarose gel phantom were used for the assessment of the self-developed PU algorithm. The MR temperature mapping experiment was initially attempted on the agarose gel phantom only with the application of a custom-made thermoregulating water pump as the heating source. Heat was generated to the phantom via hot water circulation whilst temperature variation was observed with T-type thermocouple. The PU program was implemented on the reconstructed wrapped phase images prior to map the temperature distribution of subjects. As the temperature change is directly proportional to the phase difference map, the absolute temperature could be estimated from the summation of the computed temperature difference with the measured ambient temperature of subjects. Results : The PU technique successfully recovered and removed the phase wrapping artifacts on MR phase images with various subjects by producing a smooth and continuous phase map thus producing a more reliable temperature map. Conclusion : This work presented a rapid, and robust self-developed center array-sequencing PU algorithm feasible for the application of MR temperature mapping according to the PRF phase shift property.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.120-128
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• 2002

To investigate differences between the metabolic ratios of normal controls and brain tumors such as astrocytomas and glioblastoma multiforme (GM) by proton MR spectroscopy (MRS) at 37 high field system. Using 3T MRI/MRS system, localized water-suppressed single-voxel technique in patients with brain tumors was employed to evaluate spectra with peaks of N-acetyl aspartate (NAA), choline-containing compounds (Cho), creatine/phosphocreatine (Cr) and lactate. On the basis of Cr, these peak areas were quantificated as a relative ratio. The variation of metabolites measurements of the designated region in 10 normal volunteers was less than 10%. Normal ranges of NAA/Cr and Cho/Cr ratios were 1.67$\pm$018 and 1.16$\pm$0.15, respectively. NAA/Cr ratio of all tumor tissues was significantly lower than that of the normal tissues (P=0.005). Cho/Cr ratio of glioblastoma multiforme was significantly higher than that of astrocytomas (P=0.001). Lactate was observed in all tumor cases. The present study demonstrated that the neuronal degradation or loss was observed in all tumor tissues. Higher grade of brain tumors was correlated with higher Cho/Cr ratio, indicating a significant dependence of Cho levels on malignancy of gliomas. This results suggest that clinical proton MR spectroscopy could be useful to predict tumor malignancy.