Harald H. Quick^1
1Erwin L. Hahn Institute for MR Imaging, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany

The high sensitivity inherent to ultra-high field (UHF) MR imaging can be used to achieve 7T MRA data of the intracranial vasculature and pathologies with unsurpassed high spatial resolution and vessel detail. The translation from intracranial UHF MRA to body MRA applications, however, is currently limited by numerous technical challenges including radiofrequency coils and methods for signal homogenization. Initial studies providing encouraging first results of 7T body and peripheral MRA on patients have demonstrated that these hurdles can be overcome. This can be seen as a first step to further assess the clinical potential of vascular MR at 7T.

Christopher Rodgers

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS)1-4 is a method for non-invasively probing metabolism. In the heart, phosphorus 31P MRS has proved particularly valuable because it probes the creatine-kinase system which buffers and actively transports ATP from its site of generation in the mitochondria to its site of utilisation in the myofibrils, where it drives contractile work, pumps blood around the body, and sustains life. In most heart diseases, the concentrations and/or the rates of interconversion of 31P metabolites are altered. Spectroscopy benefits from ultra-high fields in two main ways: (i) the signal-to-noise ratio for a fixed scan time increases approximately proportional to B0; and (ii) the frequency separation between the peaks from different metabolites increases proportional to B0 which makes robust spectral fitting easier. This session reviews the first human cardiac spectroscopy studies at 7T.

Thoralf Niendorf^1
1Max-Delbrueck Ctr for Molecular Medicine, Germany