Haiying Tang1, Sherif Fahmy2, Dan
Zhou1, Tony Paiva1, Todd Parrish2, Jens H.
Jensen3
1Merck Research Laboratories, Rahway,
NJ, United States; 2Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, United
States; 3New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY,
United States
In
this study, we present ex vivo MRI assessment of USPIO uptake in aortic
plaque in a mouse model of atherosclerosis at 11.7T. The purpose is to
evaluate quantitative imaging methods for characterizing USPIO uptake in
atherosclerotic plaque. Polymer solution phantoms, cell phantoms, and ex vivo
studies were developed to help understand how different signal features are
affected by the contrast agent for a variety of pulse sequences. Positive
contrast techniques and susceptibility related imaging methods were compared.
The goal is to determine which MRI metrics best reflect the contrast agent
uptake for the purpose of quantification in living tissues.