System and method for proton and phosphorus magnetic resonance imaging
AssigneeMayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research
InventorsJohn D. Port, Joel P. Felmlee, Yunhong Shu, Joshua D. Trzasko, Aiming Lu
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Abstract
The present disclosure addresses the challenges of in vivo phosphorus imaging by providing a clinically useful phosphorus MRI (PMRI) system and method that may be performed on a standard MRI system in a clinically reasonable scan time using specifically tuned coils, a phosphorus pulse sequence, and improved reconstruction and post processing algorithms.
Claims13
A method for generating images from data acquired from proton spins and phosphorus spins using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system, the method comprising:
- a) acquiring first data from a subject using an MRI system, wherein the first data are indicative of proton signals;
- b) acquiring second data from the subject using the MRI system, wherein the second data are indicative of phosphorus signals;
- c) reconstructing a first image from the first data, wherein the first image is a proton image that depicts anatomical structures in the subject;
- and
- d) reconstructing a second image from the second data, wherein the second image is a phosphorus image that has voxels whose signal intensity depends on a concentration of phosphorus in each voxel such that the second image depicts metabolic information in the subject;
- wherein the first data and the second data are acquired using a dual-tuned radio frequency (RF) coil,
- wherein the dual-tuned RF coil is a quadrature transmit array receive (QTAR) coil comprising a multi-channel phosphorus coil section that is tuned to the phosphorus spins and a single-channel proton coil section that is tuned to the proton spins, the QTAR coil comprising only a single channel tuned to the proton spins.
A system for acquiring data using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system, comprising:
- a radio frequency (RF) system comprising at least one dual-tuned RF coil and an RF generator configured to excite proton spins and phosphorus spins and to receive magnetic resonance signals therefrom, wherein the dual-tuned RF coil is a quadrature transmit array receive (QTAR) coil that comprises a multi-channel phosphorus coil section that is tuned to phosphorus spins and a single-channel proton coil section that is tuned to proton spins, and wherein the RF system comprises only a single channel tuned to proton spins;
- a computer system configured to:
- operate the RF system to excite proton spins and acquire first data from a subject, wherein the first data are indicative of proton signals;
- operate the RF system to excite phosphorus spins and acquire second data from the subject, wherein the second data are indicative of phosphorus signals;
- reconstruct a first image from the first data, wherein the first image is a proton image that depicts anatomical structures in the subject;
- and
- reconstruct a second image from the second data, wherein the second image is a phosphorus image that has voxels whose signal intensity depends on a concentration of phosphorus in each voxel such that the second image depicts metabolic information in the subject.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.