NMR imaging of leg tumors

NMR images of 8 patients with neoplasms of the legs were obtained. Volumetric and/or planar NMR data were acquired using a saturation recovery (SR) approach, incorporating magnetization refocusing. NMR images revealed tumors in all patients and correlated well with the extent seen on CT. SR images with a short interpulse delay (tau) demonstrated a significant decrease in signal intensity (SI) in histologically normal fat (n = 4) and marrow (n = 1) adjacent to tumors, consistent with a prolonged T1. At certain values of tau, tumors on SR images could not be differentiated from normal muscle (tau = 200 msec.) and marrow (tau = 2,100 msec.) by SI alone. Using this sequence with fixed signal refocusing parameters, images representing several values of tau may be required to distinguish tumors from normal structures.