title: Improved detection of pancreatic islets in vivo using double contrast.
abstract: The transplantation of pancreatic islets containing β-cells, which produce insulin, is an alternative approach to the treatment of type 1 diabetes mellitus. The non-invasive visualization of transplanted islets can be performed using MRI; however, this requires labeling of the islets with a suitable contrast agent prior to transplantation. The detection of islets labeled by iron oxide-based contrast agents and transplanted into the liver tissue can be significantly improved using the intravenous administration of a suitable gadolinium contrast agent prior to MRI. The applied contrast agent not only improves the contrast-to-noise ratio, but also eliminates artifacts that may lead to an overestimation of the number of hypointense spots and their area; thus it improves the accuracy of automated and semi-automated procedures used for transplanted islet segmentation and quantification.
authors.affiliation: MR-Unit, Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Prague, Czech Republic. vit.herynek@medicon.cz
authors.forename: Vít
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Herynek
authors.forename: Zuzana
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Berková
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Dovolilová
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Jirák
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kříž
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Girman
authors.forename: František
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Saudek
authors.forename: Milan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hájek
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003287:Contrast Media; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D007515:Islets of Langerhans / Q000166:cytology* / Q000378:metabolism; D016381:Islets of Langerhans Transplantation; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D051381:Rats
chemical_list: D003287:Contrast Media