Magnetic Resonance Elastography

 描述(由申请人提供)：许多疾病过程导致组织的机械性能发生深刻变化，为开发用于诊断目的测量这些性能的技术提供了动力。此外，在过去的十年里，人们越来越意识到组织基质力学对细胞功能的重要性。细胞通过机械转导和细胞骨架重塑对其基质环境的动态和静态特性做出反应。现在已经知道，机械生物学在包括纤维化和癌症在内的许多疾病的起源和演变中起着重要的作用。这项研究的目标是开发基于MRI的先进技术，用于定量评估组织的机械性能，并探索和转化高影响的临床和研究应用。磁共振弹性成像(MRE)是基于传播的机械波反映其介质特性的原理。剪切波是在人体内产生的，并使用核磁共振技术进行成像，这种技术具有描绘小至100纳米的周期性运动的非凡能力。利用反演算法对数据进行处理，以提供定量描述力学特性(如复杂剪切模数)的横截面图像。在上一个赠款周期中，根据这笔赠款开发的肝脏MRE技术成功地转化为广泛的临床实践，目前已在世界各地数百家医疗机构的患者护理中使用。肝纤维化是一个重要的健康问题，在美国人口中的患病率正在上升。对于许多患者来说，MRE为诊断这种疾病提供了一种比肝活检更安全、更舒适、更便宜的选择。研究还揭示了许多其他有前景的应用，包括对其他器官的纤维化和炎症的非侵入性诊断，恶性肿瘤的检测和表征，为评估脑部疾病提供新的生物标志物，以及作为组织和器官尺度上的基础研究机械生物学的工具。与上一个赠款周期一样，这项工作的主要重点将继续是先进的技术开发，以便在这一前景广阔的领域进行进一步的基础和临床研究，并进行试点研究，以确定临床应用，并开发实用的方案，使验证和最终将MRE转化为临床实践。该研究计划包括理论工作、基本的MRI脉冲序列开发、设备工程以及对正常志愿者和患者志愿者的方案测试研究。将实施和评估创新的方法，以在组织中产生机械波，获取图像数据，并进行处理以生成描述以前无法访问的生物标记物的定量图像。这些技术将被整合到可与其他研究人员共享的协议中，并用于探索有前景的应用的实用性和价值。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Many disease processes cause profound changes in the mechanical properties of tissue, providing motivation for developing technologies to measure these properties for diagnostic purposes. In addition, over the last decade there has been growing awareness of the importance of tissue matrix mechanics on cellular function. Cells react to the dynamic and static properties of their matrix environment through mechanotransduction and cytoskeletal remodeling. It is now known that mechanobiology has an important role in the origin and evolution of many disease processes, including fibrosis and cancer. The goal of this research is to develop advanced MRI-based technologies for quantitatively assessing the mechanical properties of tissue and to explore and translate high-impact clinical and research applications. MR Elastography (MRE) is based on the principle that propagating mechanical waves reflect the properties of their medium. Shear waves are generated in the body and imaged with MRI techniques that have the remarkable ability to depict cyclic motions as small as 100 nanometers. The data are processed with inversion algorithms to provide cross-sectional images quantitatively depicting mechanical properties such as the complex shear modulus. In the last grant cycle, the hepatic MRE technology developed under this grant was successfully translated into wide clinical practice and is now used in patient care at hundreds of medical facilities around the world. Liver fibrosis is an important health problem with a rising prevalence in the US population. For many patients, MRE provides a safer, more comfortable, and less expensive alternative to liver biopsy for diagnosing this condition. Research has revealed many other promising applications, including noninvasive diagnosis of fibrosis and inflammation in other organs, detection and characterization of malignancies, providing new biomarkers to assess brain disease, and as a tool in basic research mechanobiology at the tissue and organ scales. As in the last grant cycle, the primary focus of the work will continue to be advanced technology development, to enable further basic and clinical research in this promising field, as well as to conduct pilot studies to identify clincal applications, and to develop practical protocols that will allow validation and eventual translatio to MRE to clinical practice. The research plan involves theoretical work, basic MRI pulse sequence development, device engineering, and protocol testing studies with normal and patient volunteers. Innovative approaches will be implemented and evaluated for generating mechanical waves in tissue, acquiring image data, and processing to generate quantitative images depicting previously inaccessible biomarkers. These technologies will be integrated into protocols that can be shared with other investigators and used to explore the practicality and value of promising applications.