Resolution performance of the fast Padé transform: Potential advantages for magnetic resonance spectroscopy in ovarian cancer diagnostics

We examine the resolution performance of the fast Padé transform (FPT) applied to theoretically generated (synthesized) noiseless time signals that are reminiscent of in vitro magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) data as encoded from benign and malignant ovarian cyst fluid at strong magnetic fields. All the input spectral parameters were reconstructed exactly by the FPT using only N/16=64 signal points out of N=1024 sampled data. The resulting Padé absorption spectra exhibit all the unequivocally resolved metabolites that are inherent in the input time signal. The present study reveals the potential of the FPT to reliably as well as accurately quantify and split apart closely lying resonances with a very small number of signal points, over two orders of magnitude fewer than with the conventional fast Fourier transform. These features of the FPT could be of potential benefit for ovarian cancer diagnostics via MRS.