Optimization of single injection liver arterial phase gadolinium enhanced MRI using bolus track real-time imaging.

Purpose: To measure contrast agent enhancement kinetics in the liver and to further evaluate and develop an optimized gadolinium enhanced MRI using a single injection real-time bolus-tracking method for reproducible imaging of the transient arterial-phase.

Materials And Methods: A total of 18 subjects with hypervascular liver lesions were imaged with four dimensional (4D) perfusion scans to measure time-to-peak (TTP) delays of arterial (aorta-celiac axis), liver parenchyma, liver lesion, portal, and hepatic veins. Time delays were calculated from the TTP-aorta signal, and then related to the gradient echo (GRE) k-space acquisition design, to determine optimized timing for real-time bolus-track triggering methodology.

Individual kidney blood flow measured with contrast-enhanced first-pass perfusion MR imaging.

Unlabelled: The study design was HIPAA-compliant and approved by the Institutional Review Board, with all participants providing signed informed consent prior to the study. The purpose of this study was to prospectively evaluate the feasibility of determining renal blood flow (RBF) by using a technique based on intravenous administration of gadolinium chelate and evaluation of first-pass gadolinium chelate perfusion by using highly accelerated three-dimensional (3D) gradient-echo magnetic resonance (MR) imaging of the kidney in freely breathing subjects. Flow is determined with Kety-Schmidt formalism by modeling the uptake of gadolinium chelate in the kidney prior to its leaving through the venous system.