TOWARDS A SINGLE INJECTION METHOD OF DETERMINING IN VIVO PH BY MRI

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. The capability to determine in vivo pH in a non-invasive manner would represent a major advance in oncology. MRI contrast media are now widely used but the agents currently in clinical use are insensitive to biological information such as changes in ion concentrations, enzyme activity or the presence of specific binding sites. Despite the fact that agents capable of reporting pH have been known for a number of years, none have gone beyond a few small animal imaging studies. The most significant problem faced when designing a system to measure pH in vivo by MRI is that the concentration of the contrast agent must be known in order to generate a pH map. We will develop a simple, convenient solution to this problem in this project. The goal of the present research is to add a concentration marker component to this system to provide a single injectable agent solution that will yield an image map of extracellular pH of tissue in a single imaging study.