Stimulated-Echo Contrast with Hyperpolarized [1-C]-Pyruvate

Introduction: A stimulated-echo sequence with high sensitivity to diffusion and flow is shown here to provide a valuable contrast mechanism for hyperpolarized C metabolic imaging (1-4). This mechanism can highlight stationary metabolites, while suppressing signal from flowing metabolites. This helps to distinguish whether C-pyruvate is converted to Clactate within the tissue or whether the C-lactate was produced elsewhere and flowed into the tissue, thus confounding metabolic state assessments (5).