Adrienne E. Campbell1,2, Anthony N. Price1,3,
Simon Walker-Samuel1, Stephan Ellmerich4, Paul Simons4,
Raya Al-Shawi4, Philip N. Hawkins4, Xavier Golay5,
James C. Moon6, Roger J. Ordidge2, Mark B. Pepys4,
Mark F. Lythgoe1
1Centre for Advanced Biomedical
Imaging, Division of Medicine & Institute of Child Health, University
College London, London, United Kingdom; 2Department of Medical
Physics & Bioengineering, University College London, London, United
Kingdom; 3Robert Steiner MRI Unit, Imaging Science Department,
Hammersmith Hostpital, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom; 4Centre
for Amyloidosis & Acute Phase Proteins, Division of Medicine, University
College London, London, United Kingdom; 5Institute of Neurology,
University College London, London, United Kingdom; 6Heart Hospital
& Division of Medicine, University College London, London, United Kingdom
MR imaging was applied for the detection of systemic amyloidosis. Two novel MR techniques were applied to transgenic mouse models of amyloidosis: amide proton transfer (APT) in the kidney and equilibrium contrast MR (EQ-MR) in the heart and liver. Both EQ-MR and APT techniques were able to detect minor amyloid deposits and EQ-MR was demonstrated to be more sensitive to amyloid deposition in the heart than the calculation of cardiac functional parameters. These MR techniques may have applicability in early diagnosis of amyloidosis and in preclinical amyloidosis therapy studies.