Yanagisawa Kyosuke, Moriyasu Fuminori, Miyahara Takeo, Yuki Miyata, Iijima Hiroko
Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Tokyo Medical University, Tokyo, Japan.
Ultrasound Med Biol. 2007 Feb;33(2):318-25. doi: 10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2006.08.008.
Delayed parenchymal phase images of the liver more than 5 min after IV injection of ultrasound contrast agents are thought to be related to the phagocytosis of contrast agent microbubbles by macrophages. In this study, we examined whether liver-specific macrophages, Kupffer cells, phagocytosed the microbubbles and whether their elimination affected the delayed parenchymal images of the liver. Phase-contrast microscope observations showed that Kupffer cells phagocytosed various contrast agents in vitro. Among the contrast agents used, 99% of Sonazoid and Optison, and 47% of Levovist were phagocytosed, whereas only 7.3% of SonoVue and 0% of Imavist were phagocytosed. Elimination of Kupffer cells in vivo by gadolinium chloride (GdCl(3)) resulted in decreased intensity of the delayed parenchymal images with Sonazoid and Levovist, while SonoVue showed no changes compared with control. Our findings suggested that Kupffer cells phagocytosed contrast agents and they were responsible for the delayed images of contrast ultrasound in the liver.
静脉注射超声造影剂5分钟后肝脏的延迟实质期图像被认为与巨噬细胞对造影剂微泡的吞噬作用有关。在本研究中，我们检查了肝脏特异性巨噬细胞即库普弗细胞是否吞噬微泡，以及它们的清除是否会影响肝脏的延迟实质期图像。相差显微镜观察显示，库普弗细胞在体外吞噬了各种造影剂。在所使用的造影剂中，99%的声诺维（Sonazoid）和欧乃影（Optison）以及47%的Levovist被吞噬，而只有7.3%的声诺维（SonoVue）和0%的Imavist被吞噬。体内用氯化钆（GdCl₃）清除库普弗细胞导致声诺维（Sonazoid）和Levovist延迟实质期图像强度降低，而声诺维（SonoVue）与对照组相比无变化。我们的研究结果表明，库普弗细胞吞噬造影剂，并且它们是肝脏超声造影延迟图像的原因。
