Aberdeen Biomedical Imaging Centre, University of Aberdeen, Foresterhill, AB25 2ZD, Aberdeen, UK.
Acute Stroke Unit, Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Foresterhill, AB25 2ZD, Aberdeen, UK.
Sci Rep. 2019 Jul 18;9(1):10402. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-46648-0.
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.
快速磁场切换（FFC）是一种成熟的磁共振（NMR）技术，它利用变化的磁场在广泛的时间尺度上量化分子运动，从纳米到微米的范围内提供丰富的结构信息，而且是非侵入性的。先前的工作表明 FFC-NMR 生物标志物在医学应用中有很大的潜力；我们的研究小组现在通过设计一种能够对整个身体进行非侵入性、精确测量的全身 FFC 磁共振成像（FFC-MRI）扫描仪，将这项技术应用于医学成像，该扫描仪能够利用水和脂肪质子的信号，从 50μT 到 0.2T 的任意磁场强度。这是一种探索与疾病引起的组织重塑相关的新生物标志物的独特工具。我们的方法需要对 MRI 硬件的设计、构建和控制进行彻底的改变，以便在 12.5 毫秒内切换磁场，达到 50μT 到 0.2T 的任意磁场强度，从而在几分钟内提供临床有用的图像。初步研究表明，生物组织中的内源性场依赖对比度与其他成像模式的参考数据非常吻合，这证实了我们的系统能够对生物组织进行从纳米到微米的多尺度结构成像。现在可以确认以前临床研究中获得的离体结果，为癌症、中风、骨关节炎和水肿的诊断、分期和监测治疗提供应用。
