Iron Oxide Nanoparticles as Positive T1 Contrast Agents for Low-Field Magnetic Resonance Imaging at 64 mT

Abstract

We have investigated the efficacy of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) as positive T1 contrast agents for low-field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at 64 millitesla (mT). Iron-oxide based agents, such as the FDA-approved ferumoxytol, were measured using a variety of techniques to evaluate T1 contrast at 64 mT. Additionally, we characterized monodispersed carboxylic acid-coated SPIONs with a range of diameters (4.9 nm to 15.7 nm) in order to understand size-dependent properties of T1 contrast at low-field. MRI contrast properties were measured using 64 mT MRI, magnetometry and nuclear magnetic resonance dispersion (NMRD). We also measured MRI contrast at 3 T to provide comparison to a standard clinical field strength. SPIONs have the capacity to perform well as T1 contrast agents at 64 mT, with measured longitudinal relaxivity (r1) values of up to 67 L mmol− 1 s− 1, more than an order of magnitude higher than corresponding r1 values at 3 T. The particles exhibit size-dependent longitudinal relaxivities and outperform a commercial Gd-based agent (gadobenate dimeglumine) by more than eight-fold at physiological temperatures. Additionally, we characterize the ratio of transverse to longitudinal relaxivity, r2/r1 and find that it is ~ 1 for the SPION based agents at 64 mT, indicating a favorable balance of relaxivities for T1-weighted contrast imaging. We also correlate the magnetic and structural properties of the particles with models of nanoparticle relaxivity to understand generation of T1 contrast. These experiments show that SPIONs, at low fields being targeted for point-of-care low-field MRI systems, have a unique combination of a large moment plus water-diffusion correlation times close to the proton precession period, that provide very large T1 relaxivities.

Breast imaging with an ultra-low field MRI scanner: a pilot study

“…At low magnetic fields, however, gadolinium-based contrast agents do not improve the contrast of the image, in part because gadolinium is not magnetically saturated at low magnetic fields, and thus does not increase the brightness of the image. Recent work highlights the possibilities of iron-oxide nanoparticles and SPIONS for use at low magnetic fields ( 42, 43 ). A possible benefit of iron-oxide based agents is their biocompatibility, and preliminary in vivo studies used ferumoxytol, an FDA-approved SPION-based treatment of iron deficiency anemia ( 44, 45 ).…”