CEST imaging of fast exchanging amine pools with corrections for competing effects at 9.4 T

Chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) imaging of fast exchanging amine protons at 3 ppm offset from the water resonant frequency is of practical interest, but quantification of fast exchanging pools by CEST is challenging. To effectively saturate fast exchanging protons, high irradiation powers need to be applied, but these may cause significant direct water saturation as well as non-specific semi-solid magnetization transfer (MT) effects, and thus decrease the specificity of the measured signal. In addition, the CEST signal may depend on the water longitudinal relaxation time (T_1w ), which likely varies between tissues and with pathology, further reducing specificity. Previously, an analysis of the asymmetry of saturation effects (MTR_asym ) has been commonly used to quantify fast exchanging amine CEST signals. However, our results show that MTR_asym is greatly affected by the above factors, as well as asymmetric MT and nuclear Overhauser enhancement (NOE) effects. Here, we instead applied a relatively more specific inverse analysis method, named AREX (apparent exchange-dependent relaxation), that has previously been applied only to slow and intermediate exchanging solutes. Numerical simulations and controlled phantom experiments show that, although MTR_asym depends on T_1w and semi-solid content, AREX acquired in steady state does not, which suggests that AREX is more specific than MTR_asym . By combining with a fitting approach instead of using the asymmetric analysis to obtain reference signals, AREX can also avoid contaminations from asymmetric MT and NOE effects. Animal experiments show that these two quantification methods produce differing contrasts between tumors and contralateral normal tissues in rat brain tumor models, suggesting that conventional MTR_asym applied in vivo may be influenced by variations in T_1w , semi-solid content, or NOE effect. Thus, the use of MTR_asym may lead to misinterpretation, while AREX with corrections for competing effects likely enhances the specificity and accuracy of quantification to fast exchanging pools.