Comparison of MultiHance trademark and Gadovist trademark for cerebral MR perfusion imaging in healthy volunteers

To evaluate the weakly protein interacting MR contrast agent MultiHance trademark and the one-molar agent Gadovist trademark for cerebral perfusion MR imaging, a randomized intraindividual study was conducted in 12 healthy male volunteers. Perfusion-MRI was performed with single and double dose of each contrast agent on a 1.5T MR system using a gradient-echo EPI sequence. The imaging parameters, slice positioning and contrast media application were standardized. For the quantitative assessment rCBV and rCBF measurements of gray and white matter were performed. Additionally, the percentage of signal drop and the full width half maximum (FWHM) of ROI signal time curves were quantified. In a qualitative analysis the image quality of the rCBV and rCBF maps were assessed.Single dosage of the used new contrast agents was sufficient to achieve high quality perfusion maps. The susceptibility effect, described by percentage of signal loss (Gadovist trademark : 29.4% vs. MultiHance trademark : 28.3%) and the FWHM (Gadovist trademark : 6.4 s vs. Multihance trademark : 7.0 s) were not different between the agents for single dose.The one molar MR contrast agent Gadovist trademark has no advantages over MultiHance trademark, a MR contrast agent with a higher relaxivity in perfusion MRI. Both agents allow the calculation of high quality perfusion maps at a dosage of 0.1 mmol/kg bw with physiologic absolute values for regional CBV and CBF. The susceptibility effect is comparable for both agents and stronger than with conventional MR contrast media. (orig.)