Patent ID: 8518373

Claim:
A method for assessing the physiological pH, in a human or animal, by use of a chemical exchange dependent saturation transfer (CEST) based magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique, the method comprising the steps of: (a) administering a diagnostic formulation comprising Iopamidol to an individual or to an organ or other body region, fluid or tissue of the human or animal, (b) irradiating Iopamidol mobile protons to induce through chemical exchange, saturation transfer to the bulk water signal, (c) collecting the Z-spectrum, (d) obtaining the Saturation Transfer effects for each frequency offset through an asymmetric interpolation of the Z-spectrum by asymmetric smoothing splines, wherein a negative frequency offset is fitted with a low regularization factor and a positive frequency offset is fitted with a high regularization factor, and wherein the Z-spectrum is collected using fast spin echo centric encoding sequences, and (e) obtaining from the Saturation Transfer effects, a map of the physiological pH.