1H spin-lattice relaxation parameters in the length of human intestine resected for cancer

1H spin-lattice relaxation curves were acquired for samples of intestinal adenocarcinoma (B) and of uninvolved tissue at the upper (A) and lower (C) resection margin of lengths of intestine taken at surgery from 20 patients. Each sample showed a wide distribution of relaxation times with the order of 90% of the signal in a single peak at long times. Several different single-parameter relaxation times computed from discrete-exponential analysis showed that most of the relaxation times for C and B are in the upper two-thirds of the range of times for A. The mean time for the tumor is about 10% longer (with p < 0.01) than for the upper resection margin. The difference between the tumor and the lower resection margin is not significant. Distribution width parameters associated with A and C were significantly larger than those associated with the tumors. Two-exponential fits indicate that the fast-relaxing component represents a smaller signal fraction for the tumor B than for A or C.