April M. Chow1,2, Jerry S. Cheung1,2, Alfred Yu2, Hua Guo1,2, Ed X. Wu1,2
1Laboratory of Biomedical Imaging and Signal Processing, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China; 2Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
Gas-filled microbubbles possess the potential to become a unique MR contrast agent because of their magnetic susceptibility effect, high biocompatibility and unique cavitation and sonoporation properties. In this study, microbubble susceptibility induced changes were investigated using custom-made albumin-coated microbubbles and a commercially available lipid-based clinical ultrasound contrast agent SonoVue in rat livers in vivo with dynamic susceptibility weighted MRI at 7T. The results demonstrate the potential of gas-filled microbubble as an intravascular R2* contrast agent for liver MRI at high field.