Breathhold abdominal and thoracic proton MR spectroscopy at 3T

The clinical utility of proton MR spectroscopy (¹H-MRS) has been well demonstrated in the brain, prostate, and breast. The aims of this work were to investigate 1) the feasibility of abdominal and thoracic ¹H-MRS at 3T, 2) the benefits of breathholding to MRS in these regions, and 3) the utility of multiple breathhold averaging for MRS. Breathholding either eliminated or markedly reduced phase and frequency shifts and outer voxel contamination that were associated with the motion of the abdomen and the thorax during breathing. Breathholding was found to be essential to spectroscopic investigation of the thorax. Spectra of renal cell carcinoma metastases in the abdomen and thorax were obtained utilizing multiple breathhold averaging. These spectra exhibited a resonance at 3.2 ppm attributed to the trimethylamine moiety of choline metabolites. The results of this study suggest a practical strategy for implementation of ¹H-MRS in the body.