Monitoring of pO2 by spin-spin relaxation rate 1/T2 of 19F in a rabbit abscess model.

The purpose of this study was to confirm the relationship of T1 and T2 relaxation rate vs. pO2 in vivo of 19F MR signal measured from intracellular perflubron. Our work to date has demonstrated that 1/T2 is more sensitive to pO2 than 1/T1 in the in vitro environment. The advantage of 1/T2 vs. 1/T1 is the speed of measurement and sensitivity. Seven alternating T1 and T2 measurements were obtained during a continuous acquisition using the TTISS pulse sequence. An abscess model was used for the in vivo experiments where rabbits were infused with 5ml/kg Oxygent HT 10 days prior to scanning. The abscess model was used because it has been shown that perflubron accumulates in macrophages located in the abscess wall. This technique thus provided signal from the intracellular milieu. The results of this study proved that pO2 monitoring by measuring T2 of 19F is feasible and can be used in-lieu of the T1 measurement. Given that the T2 measurement is much more rapid than the T1 measurement and that T2 changes are more sensitive than T1 changes with alterations in pO2, T2 should prove to be practical and useful for monitoring transient rapid changes in pO2.