Abstract #3674

Optimized Fluorine-19 MRI Quantification and Characterization of Inflammation in Atherosclerotic Plaques in Mice at 3T

Emeline Darçot¹, Roberto Colotti¹, Jérôme Yerly^1,2, Maxime Pellegrin³, Anne Wilson⁴, Stefanie Siegert⁴, Matthias Stuber^1,2, and Ruud B. van Heeswijk^1,2

¹Department of Radiology, Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) and University of Lausanne (UNIL), Lausanne, Switzerland, ²Center for Biomedical Imaging (CIBM), Lausanne, Switzerland, ³Division of Angiology, Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV), Lausanne, Switzerland, ⁴Department of Fundamental Oncology, University of Lausanne (UNIL), Lausanne, Switzerland

Establishing a direct quantification and monitoring of inflammation in diseases such as atherosclerosis in a clinical setting is one of the main goals of fluorine-19 (¹⁹F) MRI of perfluorocarbons (PFCs). To this end, with ¹⁹F imaging and a denoising algorithm, we demonstrated the feasibility of quantitative ¹⁹F MRI in small inflammation sites such as atherosclerotic plaques in mice at 3T (average PFCs concentration per plaque=0.49±0.10mM; average plaque volume=2.8±1.1mm³). In a second step, with imaging flow cytometry, we characterized and visualized the PFC-incorporating immune cell populations involved in the inflammation process, which were mainly dendritic cells, macrophages and neutrophils (ratio 9:1:1).

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