Researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital have developed a new, possibly safer contrast agent for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The new medium-manganese-based allows a good visualization of tumors and leaves the body much faster than currently used contrast agents.
In the journal "Investigative Radiology" Prof. Dr. Eric M. Gale and his Team from Harvard Medical School describe a novel contrast agent by the name of Mn-PyC3A manganese-based: It is delivered into mice with breast cancer and liver metastases as good a contrast as conventional contrast agents gadolinium-based and may also be safer, because the manganese from the Mn-PyC3A in animal trials much more quickly and thoroughly removed from the body as the first Gadolinium-variant.
Manganese is tied up in the new contrast agent to a carrier, the interactions with cells or proteins to prevent and ensuring that it is excreted, according to the investigation, quickly from the body. Without the carrier it would be taken up by the liver and remain in the body.
The first Gadolinium-containing contrast agent was approved in 1988 in the United States. There are safety considerations but, as before, because it is known for some years that the gadolinium remains give a picture of the process can remain in the body, with the result that several resources were withdrawn from the market. Some people need to be re-examined with contrast enhanced MRI, for example, women with a high risk for breast cancer, Survivors of brain tumors or patients with relapsed Multiple sclerosis. In patients with advanced kidney disease, contrast-enhanced MRI Scans be avoided currently possible, which makes some of the diagnoses.
ZOU