A 750-MHz Electronically Tunable Resonator Using Microstrip Line Couplers for Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Imaging of a Mouse Tumor-Bearing Leg.

Abstract

The purpose of this work was to develop an electronically tunable resonator operating at 750 MHz for continuous-wave electron paramagnetic resonance (CW-EPR) imaging of a mouse tumor-bearing leg. The resonator had a multi-coil parallel-gap structure with a sample space of 16 mm in diameter and 20 mm in length. Microstrip line couplers were used in conjunction with varactor diodes to enable resonance frequency adjustment and to reduce the nonlinear effects of the varactor diodes. The resonator was modeled by the finite-element method and a microwave circuit simulation was performed to clarify its radiofrequency characteristics. A tunable resonator was evaluated in terms of its resonance frequency, tunable frequency band, and conversion efficiency of the RF magnetic field. The developed resonator provided a tunable frequency band of 4 MHz at a central frequency of 747 MHz and a conversion efficiency of 34 μT/W1/2. To demonstrate the application of this tunable resonator to EPR imaging, three-dimensional EPR images of a sample solution and a mouse tumor-bearing leg were obtained. The developed tunable resonator satisfied our initial requirements for in vivo EPR imaging and may be able to be further improved using the present finite-element and circuit models if any problems arise during future practical applications. This work may help to promote EPR imaging of tumor-bearing mice in cancer-related studies.