Abstract

Introduction Magnetic susceptibility in MRI is a source of both contrasts and artefacts. For instance, susceptibility weighted phase images provide anatomical contrast complementary to the magnitude [1, 2] by directly reflecting local magnetic field changes induced by the distribution of magnetic susceptibility of the measured object. Therefore, quantitative mapping of the magnetic susceptibility could potentially enable a novel contrast for anatomic imaging and certain diagnoses that allow quantification of oxygen saturation in larger veins or estimation of local concentrations of contrast agents (e.g., cells labelled with superparamagnetic iron oxide particles (SPIOs)). An iterative method that enables quantitative mapping of the magnetic susceptibility for arbitrary shaped objects based on susceptibility weighted phase images was recently introduced by Morgan et al. [3]. In this paper we present modifications to this method that lead to an improved quality of the reconstructed susceptibility maps in vivo. Material and Methods