Measurement of the magnetic susceptibility effect in high-field NMR imaging

The magnetic susceptibility effect often obtained in clinical NMR imaging is analysed and a measurement method of the magnetic susceptibility effect is proposed. The method of extraction of the susceptibility effect alone in high-field NMR imaging where usually the chemical shift and main magnetic field inhomogeneity effects are intermingled with the susceptibility effect is discussed. The proposed susceptibility measurement uses the susceptibility weighted echo-time encoding technique (SWEET) to modulate the NMR signal as a function of echo time with which the image intensity can be weighted. Both phantom-oriented physical experiments and human volunteer experiments were performed to demonstrate the usefulness of the technique for human imaging.