Table 3.

Analysis and interpretation consensus summary.

Aspect	Consensus
Spectral preprocessing	Time-domain apodization (line-broadening) and zero-filling steps should not be applied before spectral fitting, although may aid visual interpretation. Water reference based eddy-current correction (42) before fitting is recommended where possible.
Analysis methods	Methods should be fully automated, performing phasing, chemical shift calibration and metabolite amplitude estimation without user intervention. The flexibility to be able to model typical baseline and linewidth variations is an essential requirement; which may be achieved using time or frequency domain approaches.
Basis set	Methods that incorporate prior knowledge via a basis set are recommended over spectral integration or simple fitting of independent single peaks. Metabolite basis sets simulated from known J-coupling and chemical shift values to match the acquisition protocol are recommended for analysis. Lipid basis signals should also be incorporated for tumor analysis and macromolecule signals for short TE (<80 ms) analyses.
Quality assessment	Single peak metabolite and, where available, water linewidths should be measured at half height (FWHM), as part of an automated analysis pipeline. Metabolite or water linewidths less than 0.1 ppm are required for accurate analysis, and a metabolite SNR greater than 3 is the minimum criterion for determining the presence of a singlet. Visual assessment of spectral and fit quality is recommended, based on the combined display of the phased spectrum, fit, estimated baseline and fit residual.