Evaluation of hypoxia targeting MRI contrast agent FOBNI in brain tumor models at 3T

Motivation: Gadolinium based contrast agents have some disadvantages such as deposition in the kidney, brain etc., We developed biocompatible iron based contrast agent for tumor hypoxia imaging. Goal(s): Evaluation of FOBNI, an iron based hypoxia targeting contrast agent in brain tumor Approach: The relaxivities of FOBNI were studied at 3, 7, and 9.4 T fields. Further, a group of three rats with brain tumors underwent dynamic imaging with multiple echo scans with FOBNI. Results: It showed a clear contrast between normal and hypoxic conditions in solution. The percentage signal enhancements in the tumor over 2 hours were analyzed and showed good results. Impact: The contrast agent FOBNI showed good hypoxia-targeting ability in rat tumors. This will open a new path to developing iron-based hypoxia-targeting agents as an alternative to traditional gadolinium-based contrast agents.