Preliminary feasibility study of localized 31P spectroscopy in normal human pancreas at 3 Tesla

Motivation: Phosphorus (31P) MR spectroscopy is quite challenging in deeply lying pancreas due to limited coil sensitivity. To our knowledge, its feasibility at 3T has not been reported yet. Goal(s): This study aims to investigate the feasibility of localized 31P magnetic resonance spectroscopy of normal human pancreas at 3T. Approach: 2D CSI 31P spectroscopy sequence were applied on pancreas of 4 healthy volunteers and phosphate metabolite ratios were calculated. Results: 31P spectrum acquired from one normal pancreas achieved comparable quality and similar PME/PDE ratio to a previous pancreas 31P spectroscopy report at 7T. Others failed due to severe contamination from neighboring muscle or gallbladder. Impact: In one among the four attempts, we obtained good 31P spectrum and PME/PDE ratio in normal pancreas. Despite low success rate, this preliminary exploration showed that localized 31P spectroscopy of human pancreas at 3T is promising although challenging.