UNDERSTANDING THE DISCREPANCIES BETWEEN P-31 MR SPECTROSCOPY ASSESSEDLIVER METABOLITE CONCENTRATIONS FROM DIFFERENT INSTITUTIONS

The high divergence between the liver metabolite concentrations and pH values reported in previous quantitative P-31 magnetic resonance stud ies, for instance phosphomonoester (0.7-3.8 mM) and phosphodiester (3. 5-9.7 mM), has not been addressed in the literature, To assess what le vel of discrepancy can be caused by processing and metabolite integrat ion, in this study chemical shift imaging localized P-31 magnetic reso nance spectra of human liver were quantitated by three methods current ly applied in clinical practice: peak areas defined manually by placem ent of two cursors vs, frequency domain curve fitting with the assumpt ion of either Gaussian or Lorentzian line shapes, Large reproducible d ifferences were found in liver metabolite peak areas but not in pH, in dicating that processing and peak integration methods can only explain part of the discrepancies between the results from different institut ions. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc.