Integrated Fast High-Resolution MR Fingerprinting and Spectroscopic Imaging for Absolute Quantification of Metabolic Imaging

Quantification of metabolite concentration is the primary concern in clinical MR Spectroscopic Imaging which is valuable to assess disease pathology. Absolute metabolite quantification requires correction of MRSI signal for T1/T2 relaxation and proton density, which due to time limitations are not measured in the subject of interest but assumed to be constant across all voxels based on assumed literature values. Here, we integrated 3D-Echo-Planar Time-resolved Imaging (3D-EPTI) that allows fast MR-fingerprinting of T1, T2 and PD with fast MRSI metabolic imaging in each subject. The metabolite quantification based on voxel-based MRF was compared to literature based relaxations and PD values.