Pigs are a valuable translational biomedical tool for liver disease, and imaging can play an important role in early detection and disease characterization, but hepatic functional MRI has never been reported in pigs. Here we characterized baseline hepatic functional MRI in pigs, by performing DCE-MRI studies using two FDA-approved hepatospecific MRI contrast agents, and determined optimal animal protocols for acquiring robust data. Porcine liver has rapid accumulation of Gd-EOB-DTPA and Gd-BOPTA, following IV injection of equivalent human doses. Given the disparity in contrast agent uptake with humans for Gd-BOPTA, Gd-EOB-DTPA should be used in porcine models for biomedical imaging.
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