Oral superparamagnetic contrast agent (ferumoxsil): tolerance and efficacy in MR imaging of gynecologic diseases

The purpose of this study was to determine the tolerance and the efficacy of the oral contrast agent ferumoxsil in the assessment of gynecologic diseases. Twenty patients underwent MR imaging at 1.5 T. T1-weighted spin-echo (SE) and T2-weighted fast SE images were obtained before and after ingestion of 600-900 mL of the superparamagnetic negative contrast agent ferumoxsil. No side effects were observed. No statistically significant increase in artifact generation was present in the postcontrast images. The efficacy in bowel marking was significant for the small bowel (P = .0001) and the cecum (P < .01), but not significant in all sequences for the sigmoid. In the postcontrast images, delineation of the uterus, the right-sided adnexa, the lymph nodes, and the pathologic lesions was significantly better (P < .01), but not all sequences showed an improvement in delineation of the other pelvic organs. After administration of ferumoxsil, the level of confidence in diagnosis was significantly higher (P = .0001), but no change in diagnosis was made from the pre- to the postcontrast images. We found the oral contrast agent ferumoxsil to be well tolerated and effective in marking the bowel and in delineating the normal organs as well as the pathologic lesions on pelvic MR images.