Monte Carlo simulation of spectroscopic imaging data.

Presented is a quantitative analysis of fat and water spectroscopic imaging. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) signal decay curves obtained from conventional and spectroscopic imaging of a variety of fat and water samples in a phantom and of bone marrow, adipose tissue, and muscle from a clinical scan are analyzed to determine the transverse relaxation times and percent contribution to total signal of the fat and water fractions. The variance-covariance structure of parameter estimations obtained by the spectroscopic imaging technique is compared with those obtained by the conventional in-phase imaging technique by means of a Monte Carlo simulation.