A potential diagnostic application of magnetization transfer contrast: an in vitro NMR study of excised human thyroid tissues.

A series of freshly excised thyroid tissues was analysed using a nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer and then subjected to routine histo-pathology examination. Whilst simple T1 values for normal tissue and goitre are not significantly different, the degree of intra-subject T1 and T1s variability is shown to be an indicator of benign thyroid disease. Using data collected from an inversion-recovery sequence performed with and without magnetization transfer, a magnetization transfer rate constant was calculated for each tissue sample. These data suggest that this parameter may provide in vivo discrimination between follicular cancer and follicular adenoma.