Liver fibrosis stage strongly influences the hepatocyte-specific uptake of Gd-EOB-DTPA. Potentially the normalisation technique and K (Hep) will reduce patient and system bias, yielding a robust approach to non-invasive liver function determination.

Objectives: To develop and evaluate a procedure for quantifying the hepatocyte-specific uptake of Gd-BOPTA and Gd-EOB-DTPA using Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced (DCE) MRI. Methods:Ten healthy volunteers were prospectively recruited and 21 patients with suspected hepatobiliary disease were retrospectively evaluated. All subjects were examined with DCE-MRI using 0.025 mmol/kg of Gd-EOB-DTPA. The healthy volunteers underwent an additional examination using 0.05 mmol/kg of Gd-BOPTA. The signal intensities (SI) of liver and spleen parenchyma were obtained from unenhanced and enhanced acquisitions. Using pharmacokinetic models of the liver and spleen and an SI rescaling procedure, a hepatic uptake rate, K Hep , estimate was derived. K Hep values for Gd-EOB-DTPA were then studied in relation to those for Gd-BOPTA and to a clinical classification of the patient's hepatobiliary dysfunction. ; P <0.01). Results: K Conclusions:A new procedure for quantifying the hepatocyte-specific uptake of T 1 -enhancing contrast agent was demonstrated and used to show that impaired hepatobiliary function severely influences the hepatic uptake of Gd-EOB-DTPA.

Methods: Thirty-two healthy women and 12 healthy men (34±9 years of age) were randomized to consume 150 ml of red wine/day for women (16g ethanol/d) or the double amount for men (33g ethanol/d), or to alcohol abstention during 90 days.Participants underwent proton-nuclear magnetic-resonance spectroscopy for measurement of hepatic triglyceride content (HTGC). Blood samples for assessment of cardiovascular risk were drawn before and after the intervention.Results: After exclusion of three subjects with steatosis at baseline a trend towards increased HTGC was apparent by red wine (before median: 1.1%, range 0.2-3.9%, after median: 1.1%, range 0.5-5.2 %, p=0.059) a difference that was statistically significant compared with abstainers (p=0.02). However, no subject developed hepatic steatosis.LDL-cholesterol was lowered by red wine (-0.3 mmol/l, SE -0.1, 95% CI -0.6 to -0.04). Conclusions:Moderate consumption of red wine during three months increased HTGC in subjects without steatosis at baseline. However, since not a single participant developed steatosis we suggest that the threshold of alcohol consumption to define nonalcoholic fatty liver disease should not be lower than the amount in our study.  The results of this study provide original information about the effect of moderate wine drinking on the hepatic triglyceride content.

Inflammation is one of the hallmarks of carcinogenesis. High mammographic density has been associated with increased risk of breast cancer but the mechanisms behind are poorly understood. We evaluated whether breasts with different mammographic densities exhibited differences in the inflammatory microenvironment.Postmenopausal women attending the mammography-screening program were assessed having extreme dense, n D 20, or entirely fatty breasts (nondense), n D 19, on their regular mammograms. Thereafter, the women were invited for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), microdialysis for the collection of extracellular molecules in situ and a core tissue biopsy for research purposes. On the MRI, lean tissue fraction (LTF) was calculated for a continuous measurement of breast density. LTF confirmed the selection from the mammograms and gave a continuous measurement of breast density. Microdialysis revealed significantly increased extracellular in vivo levels of IL-6, IL-8, vascular endothelial growth factor, and CCL5 in dense breast tissue as compared with nondense breasts. Moreover, the ratio IL-1Ra/IL-1b was decreased in dense breasts. No differences were found in levels of IL1b, IL-1Ra, CCL2, leptin, adiponectin, or leptin:adiponectin ratio between the two breast tissue types. Significant positive correlations between LTF and the pro-inflammatory cytokines as well as between the cytokines were detected. Stainings of the core biopsies exhibited increased levels of immune cells in dense breast tissue.Our data show that dense breast tissue in postmenopausal women is associated with a pro-inflammatory microenvironment and, if confirmed in a larger cohort, suggests novel targets for prevention therapies for women with dense breast tissue.

BackgroundIn Contrast Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging fibrotic myocardium can be distinguished from healthy tissue using the difference in the longitudinal T1 relaxation after administration of Gadolinium, the so-called Late Gd Enhancement. The purpose of this work was to measure the myocardial absolute T1 post-Gd from a single breath-hold 3D Phase Sensitivity Inversion Recovery sequence (PSIR). Equations were derived to take the acquisition and saturation effects on the magnetization into account.MethodsThe accuracy of the method was investigated on phantoms and using simulations. The method was applied to a group of patients with suspected myocardial infarction where the absolute difference in relaxation of healthy and fibrotic myocardium was measured at about 15 minutes post-contrast. The evolution of the absolute R1 relaxation rate (1/T1) over time after contrast injection was followed for one patient and compared to T1 mapping using Look-Locker. Based on the T1 maps synthetic LGE images were reconstructed and compared to the conventional LGE images.ResultsThe fitting algorithm is robust against variation in acquisition flip angle, the inversion delay time and cardiac arrhythmia. The observed relaxation rate of the myocardium is 1.2 s-1, increasing to 6 - 7 s-1 after contrast injection and decreasing to 2 - 2.5 s-1 for healthy myocardium and to 3.5 - 4 s-1 for fibrotic myocardium. Synthesized images based on the T1 maps correspond very well to actual LGE images.ConclusionsThe method provides a robust quantification of post-Gd T1 relaxation for a complete cardiac volume within a single breath-hold.