A whole-body Fast Field-Cycling scanner for clinical molecular imaging studies

Lionel M Broche; P. James Ross; Gareth R. Davies; Mary-Joan Macleod; David J. Lurie

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-46648-0

A whole-body Fast Field-Cycling scanner for clinical molecular imaging studies

Lionel M Broche^* (Corresponding Author)
, P. James Ross
, Gareth R. Davies
, Mary-Joan Macleod
, David J. Lurie

^*Corresponding author for this work

Aberdeen Royal Infirmary

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

71 Citations (Scopus)

34 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Fast Field-Cycling (FFC) is a well-established Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) technique that exploits varying magnetic fields to quantify molecular motion over a wide range of time scales, providing rich structural information from nanometres to micrometres, non-invasively. Previous work demonstrated great potential for FFC-NMR biomarkers in medical applications; our research group has now ported this technology to medical imaging by designing a whole-body FFC Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FFC-MRI) scanner capable of performing accurate measurements non-invasively over the entire body, using signals from water and fat protons. This is a unique tool to explore new biomarkers related to disease-induced tissue remodelling. Our approach required making radical changes in the design, construction and control of MRI hardware so that the magnetic field is switched within 12.5 ms to reach any field strength from 50 μT to 0.2 T, providing clinically useful images within minutes. Pilot studies demonstrated endogenous field-dependant contrast in biological tissues in good agreement with reference data from other imaging modalities, confirming that our system can perform multiscale structural imaging of biological tissues, from nanometres to micrometres. It is now possible to confirm ex vivo results obtained from previous clinical studies, offering applications in diagnosis, staging and monitoring treatment for cancer, stroke, osteoarthritis and oedema.

Original language	English
Article number	10402
Number of pages	11
Journal	Scientific Reports
Volume	9
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-46648-0
Publication status	Published - 18 Jul 2019

Bibliographical note

The authors would like to thank the clinical teams of the Royal Aberdeen Infirmary for their support, in particular Dr German Guzman-Guttierez, Mr Paddy Ashcroft, Dr Tanja Gagliardi, Prof Steven Heys, Prof Alison Murray and Prof Graeme Murray. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 668119 (project “IDentIFY”).

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being

Keywords

SPIN-LATTICE-RELAXATION
NMR
RELAXOMETRY
DISPERSION
MRI
OPTIMIZATION
SPECTROSCOPY
DEPENDENCE

Access to Document

10.1038/s41598-019-46648-0Licence: CC BY

A whole-body Fast Field-Cycling scanner for clinical molecular imaging studies Lionel M. Broche1, P. James Ross1, Gareth R
© The Author(s) 2019. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Final published version, 1.49 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "A whole-body Fast Field-Cycling scanner for clinical molecular imaging studies",

abstract = "Fast Field-Cycling (FFC) is a well-established Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) technique that exploits varying magnetic fields to quantify molecular motion over a wide range of time scales, providing rich structural information from nanometres to micrometres, non-invasively. Previous work demonstrated great potential for FFC-NMR biomarkers in medical applications; our research group has now ported this technology to medical imaging by designing a whole-body FFC Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FFC-MRI) scanner capable of performing accurate measurements non-invasively over the entire body, using signals from water and fat protons. This is a unique tool to explore new biomarkers related to disease-induced tissue remodelling. Our approach required making radical changes in the design, construction and control of MRI hardware so that the magnetic field is switched within 12.5 ms to reach any field strength from 50 μT to 0.2 T, providing clinically useful images within minutes. Pilot studies demonstrated endogenous field-dependant contrast in biological tissues in good agreement with reference data from other imaging modalities, confirming that our system can perform multiscale structural imaging of biological tissues, from nanometres to micrometres. It is now possible to confirm ex vivo results obtained from previous clinical studies, offering applications in diagnosis, staging and monitoring treatment for cancer, stroke, osteoarthritis and oedema.",

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note = "The authors would like to thank the clinical teams of the Royal Aberdeen Infirmary for their support, in particular Dr German Guzman-Guttierez, Mr Paddy Ashcroft, Dr Tanja Gagliardi, Prof Steven Heys, Prof Alison Murray and Prof Graeme Murray. This project has received funding from the European Union{\textquoteright}s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 668119 (project {\textquotedblleft}IDentIFY{\textquotedblright}).",

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AU - Lurie, David J.

N1 - The authors would like to thank the clinical teams of the Royal Aberdeen Infirmary for their support, in particular Dr German Guzman-Guttierez, Mr Paddy Ashcroft, Dr Tanja Gagliardi, Prof Steven Heys, Prof Alison Murray and Prof Graeme Murray. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 668119 (project “IDentIFY”).

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AB - Fast Field-Cycling (FFC) is a well-established Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) technique that exploits varying magnetic fields to quantify molecular motion over a wide range of time scales, providing rich structural information from nanometres to micrometres, non-invasively. Previous work demonstrated great potential for FFC-NMR biomarkers in medical applications; our research group has now ported this technology to medical imaging by designing a whole-body FFC Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FFC-MRI) scanner capable of performing accurate measurements non-invasively over the entire body, using signals from water and fat protons. This is a unique tool to explore new biomarkers related to disease-induced tissue remodelling. Our approach required making radical changes in the design, construction and control of MRI hardware so that the magnetic field is switched within 12.5 ms to reach any field strength from 50 μT to 0.2 T, providing clinically useful images within minutes. Pilot studies demonstrated endogenous field-dependant contrast in biological tissues in good agreement with reference data from other imaging modalities, confirming that our system can perform multiscale structural imaging of biological tissues, from nanometres to micrometres. It is now possible to confirm ex vivo results obtained from previous clinical studies, offering applications in diagnosis, staging and monitoring treatment for cancer, stroke, osteoarthritis and oedema.

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KW - RELAXOMETRY

KW - DISPERSION

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KW - OPTIMIZATION

KW - SPECTROSCOPY

KW - DEPENDENCE

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JO - Scientific Reports

JF - Scientific Reports

M1 - 10402

ER -

A whole-body Fast Field-Cycling scanner for clinical molecular imaging studies

Abstract

Bibliographical note

UN SDGs

Keywords

Access to Document

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Fingerprint

Lionel Broche, M

David Lurie

Mary MacLeod

Cite this

A whole-body Fast Field-Cycling scanner for clinical molecular imaging studies

Abstract

Bibliographical note

UN SDGs

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Profiles

Lionel Broche, M

David Lurie

Mary MacLeod

Cite this