Abstract #1808

Xie J, Li K, Fung S, Kotys M

Molecular imaging of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) is an effective method for cell tracking using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). A new phase-based (&[Delta]&[phi]) technique for susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI) of SPIONs is presented and compared to magnitude-based SWI methods for sensitivity and relation to iron concentration and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). R2* appeared non-linear to iron concentration, while &[Delta]&[phi]appears appeared linear. The SNR for the &[Delta]&[phi]method increased from 3.2 to 80 times that of the R2* method as concentration increased. Phase-based SWI of SPIONs appears to be linear to concentration of iron and has higher SNR than magnitude-based SWI methods.