Abstract #0318

Direct Albumin Imaging in Mouse Tumour Model

Jamu K. Alford¹, Christian T. Farrar¹, Yan Yang¹, William Bradfield Handler², Blaine A. Chronik², Timothy J. Scholl³, Gunjan Madan⁴, Peter Caravan¹

¹Radiology, A. A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA; ²Physics & Astronomy, the University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada; ³Department of Medical Biophysics, the University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada; ⁴Siemens Medical Solutions Inc., Malvern, PA, USA

We present the first example of direct protein imaging in a living animal. Delta relaxation enhanced MR (dreMR) is a method that exploits the strong magnetic field dependence of slow-tumbling gadolinium-based contrast agents. A 1.5T, clinical MRI was outfitted with an actively shielded electromagnet to dynamically control the magnetic field in the imaging region. A nude mouse implanted with LS174T tumors was imaged within the electromagnetic insert using the albumin-bindin agent MS-325. Using the insert, the B0 field was varied from 1.4T to 1.6T to produce images of albumin distribution throughout the mouse.