Abstract #3153

Direct Imaging of Ferumoxides Using Magnetic Particle Imaging: Sensitivity, and Instrument Construction

Patrick Goodwill¹, Gary Lee¹, Greig Scott², Pascal Stang², Steve Conolly³

¹Joint Graduate Group in Bioengineering, UC Berkeley / UCSF, Berkeley, CA, USA; ²Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA; ³Bioengineering, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

Magnetic Particle Imaging (MPI) is a new imaging modality that promises long-term detection and tracking of nano-mol/L concentrations of super-paramagnetic iron oxide (SPIO) commonly used as MRI contrast agents. We measured the sensitivity of a small bore (3.8cm free bore, 1.5cm usable bore) prototype MPI system. The prototype we have developed uses narrowband MPI, allowing small receive bandwidths at high frequencies with a clear path towards body noise dominance. With the significant SNR improvement over MRI, we see great potential for MPI to directly detect SPIOs enabling rapid angiography, inflammation tracking and stem cell tracking.