Assessment of the feasibility and optimal dosing of human abdominal deuterium metabolic imaging (DMI) at 3T

Motivation: DMI is a promising non-invasive metabolic imaging tool, but clinical field strength and abdominal spectroscopy pose significant technical challenges. Goal(s): To adapt abdominal DMI to clinical settings by optimizing the RF coil setup, [6,6'-²H2]glucose dose, and data processing, establishing the basis for future clinical applications. Approach: 5 healthy volunteers underwent imaging on 2-3 occasions with varying [6,6'-²H2]glucose doses. Results: Unwanted gastric signal was minimized with this setup. Hepatic and renal timecourses were consistent across doses, although decreased doses slightly lowered quantitative values. Abdominal DMI is feasible at 3T, and the [6,6'-²H2]glucose dose can be reduced by one-third without affecting measurement reliability. Impact: This study shows the feasibility of human abdominal DMI at clinical field strengths. It demonstrates signal timecourses within the healthy kidney and liver as a reference for future clinical studies. In addition a dose reduction lowers the DMI scan costs.