Abstract #1871

Quantitative 19F MRI and CT Tracking of the Microencapsulated Stem Cells in Peripheral Arterial Disease Model

Guan Wang¹,², Yingli Fu¹, Steven M. Shea³, Judy Cook¹, Dara L. Kraitchman¹,⁴

¹Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States; ²Electrical and Computer Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States; ³Center for Applied Medical Imaging, Siemens Corporation, Corporate Research and Technology, Baltimore, MD, United States; ⁴Molecular and Comparative Pathobiology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States

Microencapsulated stem cell (SC) offers a novel means to transplant mismatched SCs to avoid immunorejection for the treatement of peripheral arterial disease (PAD) that is too extensive for the conventional therapy. We produced dual X-ray/MR-visible microcapsules (XMRCaps) by impregnated the perfluorooctyl bromine (PFOB) to enable cell tracking with non-invasive imaging modalities. Here we first explore quantitative serial cell tracking using c-arm CT and ¹⁹F-MRI of XMRCaps in a rabbit PAD model using conventional clinical imaging systems. Results indicate that in vivo XMRCaps volume tracking could be achieved by both CT and MRI, while only MRI demonstrates the XMRCaps degradation.