Olivia Monica Sigovan1, Amine Bessaad1, Hassan Alsaid1, Genevieve De Souza1, Claire Corot2, Nicolas Provost3, Zouher Majd3, Christine Menager4, Norbert Nighoghossian1, Serge Nataf5, Emmanuelle Canet-Soulas1
1CREATIS-LRMN Laboratory, University of Lyon, Lyon, France; 2Research, Guerbet, Paris, France; 3Technology Development, Genfit, Lille, France; 4Laboratoire Liquides Ioniques et Interfaces Charges, Pierre et Marie Curie University, Paris, France; 5U842, INSERM, Lyon, France
There is a clinical need for a noninvasive atherosclerosis assessment. Two contrast-enhanced MR strategies were compared for detecting inflammation in atherosclerosis. Alipoprotein-E (ApoE) modified mice were investigated at 4.7T in a 4 day follow up. One group received a retro-orbital injection of a rapid pharmacokinetics USPIO (Guerbet, France). For the second group, magnetically labeled macrophages were administered. The free particle injection strategy allows reliable inflammation detection and has the advantage of being directly applicable in clinics. Magnetically labeled cell tracking enables a direct view of a specific cellular type, providing valuable information on the lesion inflammatory status.