Frequency-selective quantification of short-echo time magnetic resonance spectra

Short-echo time magnetic resonance (MR) spectra contain large nuisance components which should be removed in order to improve quantification of the underlying metabolite concentrations. This paper shows that powerful filtering techniques such as the maximum-phase FIR filter or HLSVD-PRO proposed by Sundin el aL and Laudadio et aL, respectively, as used in long-echo time MR spectral quantification, can be applied to their more complex short-echo time spectral counterparts. Both filters are extensively studied in the presence of various unwanted components. In most of the cases the maximum-phase FIR filter outperforms HLSVD-PRO. The potential and limitations of both filters are reported.