Quantitative 19F MRI of perfluoro-15-crown-5-ether using uniformity correction of the spin excitation and signal reception.

Abstract

A common limitation of all 1H contrast agents is that they only allow indirect visualization through modification of the intrinsic properties of the tissue, making quantification of this effect challenging. 19F compounds, on the contrary, are measured directly, without any background signal. There is a linear relationship between the amount of 19F spins and the intensity of the signal. However, non-uniformity of the radiofrequency field may lead to errors in the quantified 19F signal and should be carefully addressed for any quantitative imaging. Adaptation of the previously introduced [Formula: see text] mapping technique to the problem of quantifying the 19F signal from perfluoro-15-crown-5-ether (PFCE) is proposed in this work. Initial evaluation of the proposed technique simultaneously accounting for transmit [Formula: see text] and receive [Formula: see text] field inhomogeneities is performed in a PFCE phantom. As a proof of concept, in vivo quantification of the 19F signal is performed in a murine model after application of custom-designed hollow mesoporous silica spheres (HMSS) loaded with PFCE. A phantom experiment clearly shows that only compensation for both transmit and receive characteristics outperforms inaccurate quantification based on the non- or partly-corrected signal intensities. Furthermore, an optimized protocol is proposed for in vivo application. The proposed [Formula: see text]/[Formula: see text] mapping technique represents a simple to implement and easy-to-use solution for quantification of the 19F signal from PFCE in the presence of B1-field inhomogeneities.