Positive contrast visualization for cellular magnetic resonance imaging using susceptibility-weighted echo-time encoding.
OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study was to investigate a method to generate positive contrast, selective to superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO) labeled cells, using the susceptibility-weighted echo-time encoding technique (SWEET).


METHODS
SPIO-labeled human epidermal carcinoma (KB) cells were placed in a gel phantom. Positive contrast from the labeled cells was created by subtraction between conventional spin-echo images and echo-time shifted susceptibility-weighted images. SPIO-labeled cells were injected into the left dorsal flank and hind limb of nude mice, and unlabeled cells were placed on the right side as controls. Tumor growth was monitored using the proposed method, and a histological analysis was used to confirm the presence of the labeled cells.


RESULTS
Based on in vitro testing, we could detect 5000 labeled cells at minimum and the number of pixels with positive contrast increased proportionally to the number of labeled cells. Animal experiments also revealed the presence of tumor growth from SPIO-loaded cells.


CONCLUSIONS
We demonstrated that the proposed method, based on the simple principle of echo-time shift, could be readily implemented in a clinical scanner to visualize the magnetic susceptibility effects of SPIO-loaded cells through a positive-contrast mechanism.
Kim
Young Beom
YB
Division of Electrical Engineering, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, KAIST, Daejeon 305-701, Republic of Korea.
Bae
Ki Hyun
KH
Yoo
Seung-Schik
SS
Park
Tae Gwan
TG
Park
HyunWook
H
D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D003287:Contrast Media; D017352:Echo-Planar Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D005290:Ferric Compounds; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*
D003287:Contrast Media; D005290:Ferric Compounds; C000499:ferric oxide