Young-Hoon Sung1, Chun S. Zuo2, Annaswamy Raji3, Robert L. Dobbins4, Derek J. Nunez4, Donald C. Simonson3, Rosemond A. Villafuerte2, Rebecca J. Hodge4, Sam R. Miller5, Andrew P. Brown4, Perry F. Renshaw1, Michael E. Henry2
1University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA; 2McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, USA; 3Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA; 4GlaxoSmithKline, RTP, NC, USA; 5GlaxoSmithKline, Harlow, UK
Pioglitazone is associated with clinically significant edema. However, relatively little information is available to exactly quantify the amount of body fluid accumulated. In the present study, we have utilized both proton and sodium MRI to evaluate the occurrence of edema during eight weeks of pioglitazone treatment in twelve Type II diabetes mellitus patients and six healthy subjects. For parallel evaluation and comparison of edema index, conventional measurements including tracer methods, hematologic assays, blood chemistry, body weight, pitting edema, were also assessed. Our MRI results suggest that proton T2 measurement offer more sensitive detection of edema than proton T1 or sodium MRI and are well consistent with the clinical and other laboratory data. The present study also indicates diabetes patients and healty subjects respond differently to pioglitazone treatment in terms of fluid retention.