Cornelius Faber1,
Rebecca Schmidt1, Nadine Nippe2, Klaus Strobel1,
Max Masthoff1, Carsten Hltke1, Olga Reifschneider3,
Daniela Delli Castelli4, Silvio Aime4, Christoph Bremer1
1Department
of Clinical Radiology, University Hospital Mnster, Mnster, NRW, Germany; 2Department
of Dermatology, University Hospital Mnster, Mnster, NRW, Germany; 3Institute
of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry, University of Mnster, Mnster, NRW,
Germany; 4Department of Molecular Biotechnologies and Health
Sciences, University of Torino, Torino, Italy
We have used Tm-DOTMA to label bone marrow-derived macrophages and track their migration after i.v. administration in a mouse model of local inflammation. The strongly shifted methyl resonance of Tm-DOTMA can be detected efficiently with short-TR 3D UTE MRI, avoiding signal losses due to fast relaxation. Labeled cells were detectable over eight days and the detection limit was estimated to be below 10,000 cells. Our approach may be an alternative to fluorine cell tracking, which does not require a dedicated rf coil.