Abstract #0452

Direct Protein Imaging of Inflammation in the Human Hand

Jamu K. Alford¹, A. Gregory Sorensen¹, Thomas Benner¹, Blaine A. Chronik², William Bradfield Handler², 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

The first direct protein imaging in a human volunteer is presented here. Delta relaxation enhanced MR, (dreMR) exploits the strong magnetic field dependence of slowly tumbling (e.g. bound) paramagnetic contrast agent. A volunteer with a broken finger was imaged after injection of the albumin-targeted contrast agent MS-325. A 1.5T, clinical MRI system outfitted with an electromagnetic insert (dreMR insert) was used acquire T1-weighted images at relaxation fields of 1.35 and 1.65T. The difference between the images shows contrast exclusive to the protein-bound contrast agent and demonstrated increased contrast in the inflamed tissue about the finger fracture.