Towards Novel Contrast Agents for Bowel Imaging Based on 19F Compounds

Rolf Lamerichs¹, ², Marije van der Paardt², Aart Nederveen², Jaap Stoker², Raquel Diaz-Lopez, ¹³

Contrast agents based on fluorine (19F) compounds have several advantages over T1 or T2 based contrast agents. Here we show the use of non-targeted polymeric microcapsules for bowel imaging. These microcapsules contain perfluoro-octylbromide (PFOB). For the detection of the fluorine signal we used the Fluorine ultrafast Turbo Spectroscopic Imaging (F-uTSI) sequence. This sequence can be applied to any PFC compound. The data show that the polymeric microcapsules can be developed into promising 19F-MRI contrast agents for bowel imaging using 19F spectroscopic imaging methods. The bowel transit time of these agents is around 10 hrs in black mice.