Chemical-shift micro-imaging of subcutaneous lesions

A chemical-shift imaging technique was used for the study of small subcutaneous lesions. This study concerns micro-imaging of two females suffering from a tenosynovial giant cell tumor and an epidermal cyst. High-resolution water, fat and chemical-shift artifact-free images were obtained on a whole-body MR unit (1.5 T) equipped with a 23-mm microscopy surface coil and standard gradients (23 mT/m). A significant improvement in signal-to-noise ratio was achieved by reducing the receiver bandwidth to values below +/-10 kHz. The image data sets were acquired with resolution 0.1 x 0.13 mm in the plane, slice thickness 0.5 mm and with acquisition time less than 3 min. Spatial resolution, fat suppression, image texture and edge delineation were improved on spectroscopic images compared with those on conventional MR images.