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Published on: February 16, 2020
[Magnetic resonance imaging enhanced by superparamagnetic iron oxide particles in detecting lymph node metastasis of
Yuan-kui Wu1, Yi-kai Xu, Jia-ning Zhang
1Medical Imaging Center, Nanfang Hospital, First Military Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, China. wassa@163.net
Objective:
To investigate the value of superparamagnetic iron oxide particles (SPIO) in magnetic resonance (MR) imaging for detecting lymph node metastasis of tumors.
Methods:
Twelve New Zealand rabbits were used in this study, 6 of which received unilateral intra-muscular inoculation of VX2 carcinoma cells to induce lymph node metastasis of the tumor, and the other 6 served as normal control group. MR images of the lymph nodes of the rabbits were obtained before and 12 h after subcutaneous injection of SPIO, followed by image analysis in correlation with pathological examinations.
Results:
On plain MR images, normal and metastatic lymph nodes showed similar signal characteristics. After administration of SPIO, the signal intensity of both normal lymph nodes and metastatic ones remained unchanged in spin echo (SE) T1-weighted images. On SE T2-weighted images, the signal intensity of normal lymph nodes significantly decreased heterogeneously, while that of all metastatic lymph nodes remained unchanged. In gradient recalled echo (GRE) T2-weighted images, the signal intensity of normal lymph nodes decreased significantly and homogeneously, while that of 4 rabbits in metastasis group remained unchanged, with the signal intensity in the other 2 rabbits decreased heterogeneously.
Conclusion:
SPIO-enhanced MR imaging can be applied to detect lymph node metastasis of the tumors.
