A study of chondroitin sulfate iron colloid as a liver specific MR contrast agent.

Chondroitin sulfate iron colloid (CSIC) is a therapeutic agent for iron deficiency anemia. The potential of CSIC to decrease liver signal intensity at magnetic resonance (MR) imaging has already been tested. Enhanced detection of liver carcinoma by CSIC at MR imaging was studied in vivo. Our purpose was to determine the time period required to obtain the maximum contrast enhancement from CSIC at different dose levels. We performed MR imaging of eight rats with hepatic carcinoma before and after CSIC administration. For all dose groups it was found that on T2-weighted images the maximum contrast to noise ratio (C/N) was at 4-8 hours after the drug administration, while on proton density-weighted images the maximum C/N was at 2-8 hours.