Development of a magnetic resonance elastic microscope system.
Magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) is a method that can visualize the propagating acoustic strain waves in elastic materials under mechanical excitation. The local quantitative values of shear modulus are derived from the acquired data. The MRE could improve early detection of pathology because it is known that malignant tumors tend to be much harder than normal tissues and most benign tumors. In order to observe tissues such as the early stage of tumors in mouse embryo, spatial resolution of the MRE image is not enough because of hardware limitation of the conventional MRI system. We developed the elasticity measurement system using the MR microscope which spatial resolution is about 200 mm. The external vibration system and MR pulse sequences are developed for an MR elastic microscope. Experiments were performed with homogeneous and heterogeneous agarose gel phantoms. These results suggest the developed MR elastic microscope system makes it possible to generate image that depict distribution of stiffness.
Suga
Mikio
M
Biomed. Imaging & Informatics, Nara Inst. of Sci. & Technol., Japan.
Aga
Toshiyuki
T
Minato
Kotaro
K