Phase Contrast Based MR Microscopy of Glial Tumor Cells Using Microcoils

Nicoleta Baxan¹, Ulf Kahlert², Hans Weber¹, Mohammad Mohammadzadeh¹, Juergen Hennig¹, Dominik von Elverfeldt¹

The contrast mechanism employed for differentiating structures in micron-scale samples is of great interest especially when is combined with high-resolution MRI and an adequate SNR. In this study, phase contrast together with the susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI) technique was performed for imaging living glial tumor cells. Our method combines the benefits of exploiting the phase MR signal for contrast enhancement and the sensitivity optimization by using MR microcoils. Biochemical spectroscopy investigations were performed as well within a timeframe not detrimental for preserving cells viability.