Measurement of myocardial pH by saturation transfer in man.

Myocardial pH has been shown in animal models to be a sensitive indicator of ischemia. In vivo measurement in humans using 31p magnetic resonance spectroscopy is complicated by the overlap of blood 2,3-diphosphoglycerate peaks with the P(i) peak used for pH measurement. A "saturation transfer" method combined with spatial presaturation of skeletal muscle signal is presented which can obtain spectra from the heart free of contamination of 2,3-DPG signal in which intracellular P(i) resonance can be clearly observed. Application to a group of six normal subjects found that the chemical shift of the intracellular inorganic phosphate peak was 4.95+/-0.06 relative to the phosphocreatine peak. This is equivalent to a pH of 7.11+/-0.05.