Dynamic gelation process observed in Cartesian magnetic particle imaging

Abstract

Magnetic Particle Imaging (MPI) was developed to visualize the three-dimensional distribution of a superparamagnetic tracer in the imaging volume. However, utilizing multi-spectral reconstruction techniques enables MPI to differentiate tracer types or particle properties such as temperature, anisotropy, binding-state or viscosity of the medium. Here, we apply MPI to observe the dynamic gelation process of perimag® particles in a gelatine-water matrix. Phantom measurements are recorded as a function of time to visualize the effect of gelation. The gelatine matrix forms progressively over several minutes, putting the gelation kinetics into a time frame easily observed in MPI. As a reference, perimag® is measured in H2O and a fully aged gelatine matrix. For this study, Cartesian MPI is used, where calibration efforts are greatly reduced by under-sampling calibration data and taking advantage of interpolation post-processing.