Oleic Acid (OA), A Potential Dual Contrast Agent for Postmortem MR Angiography (PMMRA): A Pilot Study

The objective of this research is to compare MR images of oleic acid (OA) with paraffin oil (PO)in vitro and inex situ animal hearts, in order to evaluate the feasibility to use OA as a novel contrast agent for PMMRA.In vitro, OA, PO and water (control) were introduced into three tubes separately and T1weighted-spin echo (T1w-SE) and T2w-SE images were acquired on a 1.5T MR scanner. In the second experiment, OA and PO were injected into left coronary artery (LCA) and left ventricle (LV) ofex situ bovine hearts and their T1w-SE, T2w-SE, T1w-multipoint Dixon (T1w-mDixon) and 3DT2w-mDixon images were acquired. The overall results indicate that OA may have a potential to be used as a dual (T1 and T2 based) contrast agent for PMMRA when proper sequence parameters are utilized. However, as the pilot study was based on limited number of animal hearts, more researches using OA in cadavers are needed to validate our findings.
Source: Journal of Huazhong University of Science and Technology -- Medical Sciences -- - Category: Research Source Type: research