Diffusion-perfusion in intra-axial brain tumors with high relaxivity contrast agents.

A high relaxivity contrast agent is indicated for use in MRI of the central nervous system to visualize lesions with an abnormal blood-brain barrier (BBB) or abnormal vascularity of the brain. We evaluated MultiHance (gadobenate dimeglumine, Gd-BOPTA) on T2*-weighted perfusion imaging in 33 histologically proven intra-axial brain tumors. The higher T1 relaxivity, and therefore better contrast-enhanced T1 imaging led to significantly better tumor delineation. The higher T2 relaxivity allowed high quality T2* perfusion MRI and post processed rCBV maps, with a dose of 0.1 mmol/kg MultiHance.