Detecting metabolites in breast lesions by in vivo (1)H MR spectroscopy can be difficult due to the abundance of mobile lipids in the breast which can produce spurious sidebands that interfere with the metabolite signals. Two-dimensional J-resolved spectroscopy has been demonstrated in the brain as a means to eliminate these artifacts from a large water signal; coherent sidebands are resolved at their natural frequencies, leaving the noncoupled metabolite resonances in the zero-frequency trace of the 2D spectrum. This work demonstrates that using the zero-frequency trace-or equivalently the average of spectra acquired with different echo times-can be used to separate noncoupled metabolite signals from the lipid-induced sidebands. This technique is demonstrated with simulations, phantom studies, and in several breast lesions. Compared to the conventional approach using a single echo time, echo time averaging provides increased sensitivity for the study of small and irregularly shaped lesions.
Copyright 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc.