Is Subcutaneous Route an Alternative to Intravenous Route for Mouse Contrast-Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging at 1.5 T?

Abstract EN

The present work compares intravenous (IV) and subcutaneous (SC) routes for contrast-enhanced MRI (CE-MRI) in mice.

For that purpose, we selected two contrast media used in clinical practice.

MRI acquisitions were performed at 1.5 T on five adult mice (Swiss, 41 g +/- 3 g).

On each animal, four acquisitions were achieved with IV and SC administration of either Gd-DOTA or MS-325 (1 acquisition per week).

For each route, 0.1 mL of NaCl and 0.1 mL of contrast agent were injected.

For each acquisition, 200 T1-weighted images were acquired in a 2 h 34 min time lapse.

For each route and contrast medium, dynamic contrast enhancement (DCE) curves were obtained.

Time-to-peak (TTP), uptake, and washout constant-time values and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) were extracted.

IV route TTP value was 4.9 min with Gd-DOTA and 5.4 min with MS-325.

SC route TTP was 43.3 min with Gd-DOTA and 45.0 min with MS-325.

Despite slower uptake constant-time, we show that SC is a potentially valuable alternative to the IV route in mouse preclinical CE-MRI.