Noninvasive estimation of oxygen consumption in human calf muscle through combined NMR measurements of ASL perfusion and T₂ oxymetry.

The objective of this work was to demonstrate the feasibility of measuring muscle O2 consumption (V˙O2) noninvasively with a combination of functional nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) imaging methods, and to verify that changes in muscle V˙O2 can be detected with a temporal resolution compatible with physiological investigation and patient ease. T2-based oxymetry of arterial and venous blood was combined with the arterial-spin labeling (ASL)-based determination of muscle perfusion. These measurements were performed on 8 healthy volunteers under normoxic and hypoxic conditions in order to assess the sensitivity of measurements over a range of saturation values. Blood samples were drawn simultaneously and used to titrate blood T2 measurements versus hemoglobin O2 saturation (%HbO2) in vitro. The in vitro calibration curve of blood T2 fitted very well with the %HbO2 (r(2): 0.95). The in vivo venous T2 measurements agreed well with the in vitro measurements (intraclass correlation coefficient 0.82, 95% confidence interval 0.61-0.91). Oxygen extraction at rest decreased in the calf muscles subjected to hypoxia (p = 0.031). The combination of unaltered muscle perfusion and pinched arteriovenous O2 difference (p = 0.038) pointed towards a reduced calf muscle V˙O2 during transient hypoxia (p = 0.018). The results of this pilot study confirmed that muscle O2 extraction and V˙O2 can be estimated noninvasively using a combination of functional NMR techniques. Further studies are needed to confirm the usefulness in a larger sample of volunteers and patients.