title: Hepatic micrometastases in the rat: ferrite-enhanced MR imaging.
abstract: A rat tumor model was used to evaluate the ability of ferrite-enhanced magnetic resonance (MR) imaging to demonstrate hepatic metastases smaller than 1 cm. Twenty-eight rat livers were inoculated with 5 X 10(5) mammary carcinoma cells and imaged with a 0.6-T MR system. Non-enhanced and ferrite-enhanced images were analyzed and correlated with autopsy findings for each rat. Lesion detection rates correlated closely with cancer-to-liver contrast-to-noise ratios. Ferrite-enhanced MR imaging demonstrated significantly more lesions than non-enhanced imaging (P less than .05) and decreased the threshold size for lesion detectability (less than 2 mm). Ferrite also enabled more accurate measurements of the lesions (r = .96).
authors.affiliation: Medical College and Hospital, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Republic of China.
authors.forename: Y M
authors.initials: YM
authors.lastname: Tsang
authors.forename: D D
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: Stark
authors.forename: M C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Weissleder
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wittenberg
authors.forename: J T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Ferrucci
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005260:Female; D005290:Ferric Compounds; D008114:Liver Neoplasms, Experimental / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008325:Mammary Neoplasms, Experimental; D009368:Neoplasm Transplantation; D051381:Rats
chemical_list: D005290:Ferric Compounds; C001215:ferrite