Abstract #1815

Kawai Y, Aoki I, Jo J, Higuchi T, Umeda M, Tabata Y, Silva A, Tanaka C

Negative contrast-agent is useful for organs which have homogeneous positive background such as liver and brain. However, it is difficult to distinguish in areas of inherently low background signal, such as abdomen and cavities. The purpose of this study is to use manganese-enhanced MRI to improve SNR and contrast in tissues prior to administration of iron-oxide-labeled agents or cells. Mn2+ can shorten the T1 and yield better SNR for detecting negative contrast-agents such as iron-oxide particles. This information will be also useful for identifying and masking the signal voids due to local magnetic inhomogeneity or low signal areas.