Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy of Bone Tumors and Bone Marrow Disease

The authors have made use of an integrated magnetic resonance imaging/spectroscopy (MRI/MRS) examination to study seven patients with a variety of bone tumors. The spatial localization method used in the 31P portion of the examination was surface coil localization and a one-dimensional chemical shift imaging method (3 cases). The authors found that the precision of spatial localization was critical in many of these cases, since most of these bone tumors were surrounded by muscle tissue that contained high concentrations of phosphocreatine (PCr). For this reason, they suggest that the metabolite ratios should be referenced to the adenosine triphosphate (beta-NTP) resonance rather than PCr. The phosphate monoester (PME) to beta-NTP ratio was elevated as compared with normal muscle in all of the bone tumors studied. The authors found that all of these tumors exhibited pHs between 7.0 and 7.2, which are similar to the values found for normal muscle. They also show the feasibility of using a line-selective proton chemical shift imaging sequence with high spatial resolution for investigating changes in the fatty composition of bone marrow. This method is illustrated in an example of a patient with advanced avascular necrosis in the femoral heads.