Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Berlin, Germany.
Phys Med Biol. 2020 Nov 27;65(23). doi: 10.1088/1361-6560/abc364.
Magnetic particle imaging (MPI) is a novel technology, which opens new possibilities for promising biomedical applications. MPI uses magnetic fields to generate a specific response from magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs), to determine their spatial location non-invasively and without using ionizing radiation. One open challenge of MPI is to achieve further improvements in terms of sensitivity to translate the currently preclinical performed research into clinical applications. In this work, we study the noise and background signals of our preclinical MPI system, to identify and characterize disturbing signal contributions. The current limit of detection achieved with our device was determined previously to be20ng of iron. Based on the results presented in this work, we describe possible hardware and software improvements and estimate that the limit of detection could be lowered to about 1-2 ng. Additionally, a long-term analysis of the scanner performance over the last 3 years is presented, which proved to be an easy and effective way to monitor possible changes or damage of hardware components. All the presented results were obtained by analysing empty scanner measurements and the presented methodology can easily be adapted for different scanner types, to compare their performances.
磁性粒子成像（MPI）是一种新技术，为有前途的生物医学应用开辟了新的可能性。MPI 利用磁场从磁性纳米粒子（MNPs）中产生特定的响应，从而非侵入性地确定其空间位置，而无需使用电离辐射。MPI 的一个开放性挑战是进一步提高灵敏度，将目前在临床前进行的研究转化为临床应用。在这项工作中，我们研究了我们的临床前 MPI 系统的噪声和背景信号，以识别和表征干扰信号的贡献。我们的设备之前确定的检测极限为 20ng 铁。基于这项工作中提出的结果，我们描述了可能的硬件和软件改进，并估计检测极限可以降低到约 1-2ng。此外，还对过去 3 年中扫描仪性能进行了长期分析，事实证明，这是一种监测硬件组件可能发生变化或损坏的简单有效的方法。所有呈现的结果都是通过分析空扫描仪测量值获得的，并且呈现的方法可以轻松地适应不同的扫描仪类型，以比较它们的性能。
