SYSTEMS AND METHODS OF CELL MEASUREMENT, USING ULTRASHORT T2*-RELAXOMETRY Russian patent published in 2011 - IPC A61K49/06 A61B6/03 

FIELD: medicine.

SUBSTANCE: group of inventions relates to medicine, methods and systems of magnetic-resonance (MR) measurement of ultrashort T₂*-relaxation ®, which uses obtaining spin-echo, for control of quantity, migration, proliferation and/or homing of cells, marked with great amount of iron, in cell transport, cell therapy, including in vivo. Sequence of MR images is generated and T₂*-R is measured with decay curve T₂*, obtained by series of spin-echo images, including the following stages: induction of first spin-echo signal (SES), generating first spin-echo image, and set of SES, generating series of additional spin-echo images from suitable displacements of decay T₂*; obtaining T₂* image by fitting of exponent. First SIS and second SIS are formed by means of first radio-frequency pulse (RFP), followed by second RFP, different from first. SIS is induced by RFP with small angle of inclination. Echo is formed by application of gradient reading. In tissues, which contain cells, marked by iron with high concentration, with T₂ lower than 1 msec signal can decay to the level of noise with echo time 2 msec.

EFFECT: as T₂ is much longer in cells, marked with superparamagnetic iron oxide, and signal, obtained by means of spin-echo, is much stronger than signal, obtained by means of gradient echo, claimed method and system for its realisation make it possible to avoid negative effects, associated with significant loss of signal on image, using relatively long T₂ decay in obtaining a series of spin-echo images, facilitating determination of T₂*, in spite of considerable weakening of signal, associated with decay of ultrashort T₂*, thus ensure improvement of quantitative evaluation of marked cells; make it possible to measure ultrashort T₂* of other contrasting agents, causing considerable difference between T₂ and T₂*-P.

12 cl, 2 ex, 7 dwg