Biochemistry of the uterus studied by magnetic resonance techniques

Magnetic resonance (MR) is a rapidly growing versatile and non-destructive tool for investigation of various aspects of biochemistry, physiology and disease. It is valuable to evaluate the new MR techniques and apply them to the most important problems for which they are best suited. This study involves using two new magnetic resonance techniques, Spectral Localization by IMaging (SLIM) and Diffusion-Weighted Imaging (DWI) in studies of uterine biochemistry. The work presented strives to: (1) investigate the relation between biochemical and structural heterogeneity in normal and abnormal uterus using high resolution $\sp{31}$P magnetic resonance spectroscopy ($\sp{31}$P MRS); (2) evaluate SLIM in the above study; and (3) apply water DWI to the study of uterine endocrinology.The study has three parts. First, there are significant differences in biochemistry among the various tissue types in hysterectomized human uterus as revealed by high resolution $\sp{31}$P MRS. Specifically, the junctional zone, outer myometrium and cervix have different spectral characteristics. Additionally, adenomyosis causes changes in the spectra. Second, the above differences are apparent using the SLIM technique, which can be used for noninvasive biochemical evaluations in human subjects. Third, water diffusion is found to be anisotropic in the myometrium, but not in the endometrium, and it depends on hormonal conditions in the endometrium, but not in the myometrium. The anisotropy of water diffusion can be exploited to improve image contrast among the various uterine tissue types. The hormonal responsiveness suggests that diffusion imaging of human uterus may be useful in detecting endometrial pathology.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio