Abstract #1911

Natural D-Glucose as a Biodegradable T2 Contrast Agent for MRI

Nirbhay N. Yadav¹,², Jiadi Xu¹,², Amnon Bar-Shir³,⁴, Qin Qin¹,², Peter C.M. van Zijl¹,²

¹Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States; ²FM Kirby Research Center, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD, United States; ³Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States; ⁴The Institute for Cell Engineering, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States

We show that natural D-glucose can be used as an exogenous T2 relaxation agent, particularly at field strengths available for human MRI. Transverse relaxation and diffusion measurements were carried out on D-glucose phantoms at different concentrations, pH, and magnetic field strengths (3 T and 7 T). The results show strong dependence of water transverse relaxivity on glucose concentration, sample pH, and field strength. We show the increased relaxivity is due to the 5 exchangeable hydroxyl protons in glucose and that the greatest relaxivity is observed in the physiological pH range.