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Comparative Study
. 2019 Sep;54(9):559-564.
doi: 10.1097/RLI.0000000000000577.

Comparison of the Relaxivities of Macrocyclic Gadolinium-Based Contrast Agents in Human Plasma at 1.5, 3, and 7 T, and Blood at 3 T

Pavol Szomolanyi  1   2 , Martin Rohrer  3 , Thomas Frenzel  3 , Iris M Noebauer-Huhmann  1   4 , Gregor Jost  3 , Jan Endrikat  3   5 , Siegfried Trattnig  1   6   7 , Hubertus Pietsch  3
Affiliations
Comparative Study

Comparison of the Relaxivities of Macrocyclic Gadolinium-Based Contrast Agents in Human Plasma at 1.5, 3, and 7 T, and Blood at 3 T

Pavol Szomolanyi et al. Invest Radiol. 2019 Sep.

Abstract

Purpose: The relaxivities of 3 macrocyclic gadolinium-based contrast agents (GBCAs) were determined in human plasma and blood under standardized and clinically relevant laboratory conditions.

Methods: The T1 relaxivity, r1, was determined in human plasma at 1.5, 3, and 7 T, and in human blood at 3 T at 37°C in phantoms containing 4 different concentrations of the macrocyclic GBCAs gadobutrol, gadoteridol, and gadoterate. An inversion recovery turbo spin echo sequence was used to generate images with several inversion times. The T1-times were obtained by fitting the signal intensities to the signal equation. r1 was obtained by a 1/y-weighted regression of the T1-rates over the concentration of the GBCAs.

Results: For gadobutrol, the obtained r1 [L/(mmol·s)] in human plasma at 1.5 T, 3 T, and 7 T, and in human blood at 3 T was 4.78 ± 0.12, 4.97 ± 0.59, 3.83 ± 0.24, and 3.47 ± 0.16. For gadoteridol, r1 was 3.80 ± 0.10, 3.28 ± 0.09, 3.21 ± 0.07, and 2.61 ± 0.16, and for gadoterate, 3.32 ± 0.13, 3.00 ± 0.13, 2.84 ± 0.09, and 2.72 ± 0.17.

Conclusions: The relaxivity of gadobutrol is significantly higher than that of gadoteridol and gadoterate at all magnetic field strengths and in plasma as well as in blood, whereas that of gadoteridol was higher than gadoterate only in plasma at 1.5 and 7 T. This is in accordance with results from 3 previous studies obtained in different media.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of interest and sources of funding: The authors P.S., I.M.N.-H., and S.T. declare no conflicts of interest. The authors M.R., T.F., G.J., J.E. and H.P. are employees of Bayer AG. This study was funded by the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF-LS11-018), Austrian Science Fund (FWF KLI541-B30), and Slovak Grant Agency (APVV-15-0029). Financial support to the Medical University of Vienna was also provided by Bayer AG.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
IR-TSE images with inversion time (TI) of 750 milliseconds at 3 T of a series of blood samples, illustrating the determination of the SI in the samples. The black box indicates the ROI that was used in each sample to determine the SI in the center of each vial.
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FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Plot of the relaxation curve of the signal intensities at 3 T in blood samples with different concentrations of gadobutrol using different inversion times (TI). The lines represent the fit of the measured signal intensities (SI) to Equation 1. The error bars represent the scatter of the SI within each ROI. This yields the T1-time of the respective sample.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Linear relationship between the GBCA concentration in human blood plasma and the relaxation rates of the respective samples at 1.5, 3, and 7 T. The lines represent the fit of the data points to Equation 2 using 1/y-weighted linear regression that was forced through a joint value for T10 at each field strength. The error bars represent the standard error of the fitted T1 rates. In most cases, they are smaller than the symbols. The slopes yield the respective T1-relaxivities.
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Plot of the T1-relaxivities of the 3 macrocyclic GBCAs at 1.5 T, 3 T, and 7 T obtained in this study and previous studies– listed in Table 2. The bars represent the ranges between the lowest and highest reported value for each GBCA. Of note are the different media from different species that were used in the different studies.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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