Contrast imaging agent with dissolved gas-evolving fluid

Abstract

A diagnostic contrast composition includes a carrier fluid and a non-decaying gas-evolving fluid incorporated in the carrier fluid. The gas-evolving fluid has a vapor pressure sufficient to evolve the gas from a circulatory system within a lung of a patient. The gas-evolving fluid is a composition containing a sufficient quantity of atoms with an atomic number higher than 8 to provide an increased absorption sufficient to increase a Hounsfield Unit measurement in an image in a CT imaging system. The gas-evolving fluid is selected from the group consisting of xenon gas, krypton gas, sulfur hexafluoride, a perfluorocarbon, a brominated perfluorocarbon, and combinations thereof. The carrier fluid is selected from the group consisting of water, saline, saline comprising one or more blood proteins, and saline comprising dissolved lipids.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 62 / 118,946, filed on Feb. 20, 2015 and titled “Contrast Imaging Agent With Dissolved Gas”, and U.S. Provisional Application No. 62 / 118,517, filed on Feb. 20, 2015 and titled “A System and Method for Combined Gaseous / Liquid Imaging Agent Imaging”, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.BACKGROUND OF THE DISCLOSUREField of the Disclosure[0002]The present disclosure relates generally to a contrast agent for use in diagnostic imaging and to a method of using the contrast agent in a diagnostic imaging procedure, and more specifically, to a contrast agent having a gas-evolving fluid with augmented solubility and a method of using the contrast agent in a diagnostic imaging procedure.Description of Related Art[0003]There is often a medical need to assess one or more of the ventilation, air trapping, physical structure, gas exchange, and t...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

While techniques based on nuclear medicine, including PET and SPECT, have high sensitivity and a single-dose radiation exposure, a drawback of these techniques is limited spatial resolution and relatively high image noise.

However, a drawback of CT technology is that an additional radiation dose is required for each image taken.

But, like cyclotron produced radioactivity, hyperpolarization decays spontaneously and requires special and expensive equipment for its creation.

While MR generally has spatial and temporal resolution between that of CT and nuclear medicine with no radiation dose to the patient, the gadolinium contrast is not readily transferred to the air and the MR receives no signal from air in the lungs as there are almost no hydrogen atoms to image relative to the hydrogen atom content of the surrounding tissue.

However, inhalation studies are complicated, involve complex, expensive, seldom used machines, and are thus not used in common clinical practice.

On the other hand, in addition to exposure to radiation for the patient and hospital personnel, an additional disadvantage of its short half-life is that the radioactive isotope must be generated near the imaging site, for example using relatively expensive, large and heavy cyclotrons.

In addition, there is significant motion of the lungs during normal respiration, which cause significant blurring in a PET image.

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