Biomedical Engineering: Bridging Medicine and Technology 1st Edition by Veronique Tran,Mark Saltzman

Exercise 7

A radiologist has asked for your help determining whether a tumor in his patient has increased in size. He has had difficulty because the relative intensity of the tumor tissue and surrounding tissue are nearly the same; however, he does know the T1 and T2 relaxation rates of both tissue types. From this information, you plot the relaxation curves shown.
a. Which (if any or both) of the two plots is useful and why?
b. To what would you set the echo or repetition time to maximize contrast (approximately)?