Contrast agent for NMR scanning

Computerized Medical Imaging and Graphics, Printed in the U.S.A. All rights reserved.

Vol. 16, No. I, pp. I-III,

1992 Copyright

0895-611 l/92 $5.00 + .OO 0 1992 Pergamon Press PIG

NEW PATENTS This Section contains abstracts and, where appropriate, illustrations of recently issued United States patents and published patent applications filed from over 30 countries under the Patent Cooperation Treaty. This information was obtained from recent additions to the Pergamon PATSEARCH@ online database in accordance with interest profiles developed by the Editors. Further information about Pergamon PATSEARCH@ can be obtained from Pergamon Orbit InfoLine Inc., 8000 Westpark Drive, McLean, Virginia 22102 U.S.A. Copies of complete patents announced in this Section are available from Pergamon Orbit InfoLine Inc. for $8 per copy. Payment with order is required. Orders outside North America add $2 for air postage. Order by patent number for Pergamon Orbit InfoLine only.

4880007

duced by the paramagnetic in solution, and subjecting imaging.

CONTRAST AGENT FOR NMR SCANNING

4881032

Peter J Sadler, Charles T Harding, James Kelly, Andrew McEwen, Harrow Weald, United King-

dom assigned to Amersham International

substance alone free the patient to NMR

PLC

METHOD OF, AND APPARATUS FOR, NMR SPECTROSCOPIC METABOLITE IMAGING AND QUANTIFICATION

Complexes formed between (a) an amino di- or poly-phosphonate in which phosphonate groups comprise separate carbon atoms and (b) a paramagnetic metal ion such as Gd3 + , have calcified tissue seeking properties which make them useful as contrast agents for investigating bone metabolism by NMR scanning. Two preferred poly-phosphonates are ethylenediamine tetramethylphosphonate and meta-xylene-diamine tetramethylphosphonate.

Paul A Bottomley, Peter Roemer, William A Edelstein, Otward M Mueller assigned to General Electric Company A method for NMR spectroscopy metabolite imaging utilizes the steps of: applying to a desired portion of a sample a pulsed phaseencoding linear magnetic gradient signal in at least one of the three orthogonal dimensions of a Cartesian coordinate set, prior to acquisition of free-induction-decay NMR response signals from the sample portion; substantially eliminating from at least the sample portion eddy current fields induced responsive to the phase-encoding gradient pulses; maximizing the signal-to-noise ratio of the NMR response signals; and displaying the data resulting from Fourier transformation of the received response data. A high-field NMR imaging system is provided with self-shielded gradient coils, to subsantially remove eddy-current effects, and at least one of maximized-SNR antenna, of quadraturedriven volume RF coil and/or surface RF coil types are utilized for both transmission of the excitation RF pulses and reception of the RF response signals. The acquired FID data is filtered and a Fourier transform reconstruction, of dimension d’ equal to one greater than the numder d of spatial dimensions to be displayed, is performed.

4880008

WV0 ENHANCEMENT OF NMR RELAXIVITY Randall B Lauffer assigned to The General Hospital Corporation A method of decreasing the NMR relaxation times (Tl or T2) of water protons in contact with a biological tissue, the method involving administering to a human patient an NMR contrast agent comprising a paramagnetic ion complexed with a chelating substance, the contrast agent being characterized in that it is capable of binding non-covalently and nonimmunologically to a component of the tissue, and as a result of such binding is capable of enhancing relaxivity of the water protons by a factor of at least 2, compared to the relaxivity inI