Abstract #0699

A Novel Approach to Positive Contrast Using SPIOs in the Motional Averaging Regime

Jon Furuyama¹, Yung-Ya Lin²

¹Radiology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States; ²Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States

Currently, positive contrast with superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIOs) is limited to large particles within the static dephasing regime. We present a novel approach to generating positive contrast from SPIOs within the motional averaging regime. By simply adding a T2-weighted sequence prior to an inversion recovery sequence, we show a 30-fold improvement in contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) over ordinary inversion recovery sequences. By taking advantage of the latest advances in nanotechnology, we expect an even greater improvement by making use of nanoparticles that have both T1 and T2 enhancement.