Gopal Varma1,
Xiaoen Wang1, David C. Alsop1, Rupal Bhatt2,
Aaron K. Grant1
1Radiology,
Division of MR Research, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard
Medical School, Boston, MA, United States; 2Medicine, Beth Israel
Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, United States
Balanced steady-state free precession (bSSFP) is a fast, signal efficient sequence for imaging of hyperpolarized 13C. By exploiting the dependence of the bSSFP signal on the chemical shift, or, equivalently, the phase advance between successive RF excitation pulses, it is possible to extract chemical shift selective images of multiple metabolites. The method is illustrated in phantoms and for imaging of pyruvate and its metabolites in a mouse model of renal cell carcinoma.