Abstract #3438

Diffusion-Weighted Hyperpolarized 13C-Urea in a Murine Model of Liver Fibrosis

Irene Marco-Rius¹, Jeremy A Gordon¹, Peder EZ Larson¹, Romelyn delos Santos¹, Robert A Bok¹, Aras Mattis^2,3, Jacquelyn Maher^3,4, Daniel B Vigneron^1,3, and Michael A Ohliger^1,3

¹Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States, ²Department of Pathology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States, ³Liver Center, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States, ⁴Department of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States

Diffusion weighted MRI has been widely used to measure the movement of water molecules and study tissue microstructure in order to characterize both diffuse and focal liver disease. In liver fibrosis, for instance, increased collagen formation is associated with restricted diffusion of water. However, the majority of water within the liver is either in the vascular or intracellular space, making the diffusion of water a potentially poor marker for fibrosis, which is an extracellular process. Here, we investigated applying diffusion-weighted MRI with an exogenously injected extracellular agent, hyperpolarized ¹³C-urea, as a potentially more sensitive probe of the extracellular space in the liver in a mouse model of liver fibrosis induced with CCl₄.

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