title: Ultrasound assessment of polymer-shelled magnetic microbubbles used as dual contrast agents.
abstract: This letter describes an ultrasound imaging assessment of novel contrast agents that are detectable by both medical ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging. Such agents are created by including superparamagnetic particles in polymer-shelled microbubbles through two different approaches. The reduced echogenicity and nonlinearity of the microbubbles are observed, depending on the strategy used to include the particles and the resulting density. The best results are obtained using imaging techniques that exploit the third-order nonlinear term, which is especially true when the microbubbles are excited by means of chirp pulses.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications Engineering and Naval Architecture, University of Genoa, Via Opera Pia 11, 16145 Genoa, Italy. sciallero@dibe.unige.it
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sciallero
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Trucco
mesh_terms: D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D052203:Ferrosoferric Oxide / Q000032:analysis; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D045423:Microbubbles; D053758:Nanoparticles; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D011142:Polyvinyl Alcohol; D013499:Surface Properties; D014463:Ultrasonography / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: C427127:superparamagnetic blood pool agent; D011142:Polyvinyl Alcohol; D052203:Ferrosoferric Oxide