ORAL SUPERPARAMAGNETIC CONTRAST AGENT (FERUMOXSIL) - TOLERANCE AND EFFICACY IN MR-IMAGING OF GYNECOLOGIC DISEASES

The purpose of this study was to determine the tolerance and the effic acy of the oral contrast agent ferumoxsil in the assessment of gynecol ogic diseases. Twenty patients underwent MR imaging at 1.5 T. T1-weigh ted spin-echo (SE) and Ta-weighted fast SE images were obtained before and after ingestion of 600-900 mt of the superparamagnetic negative c ontrast agent ferumoxsil, No side effects were observed; No statistica lly significant increase in artifact generation was present in the pos tcontrast images. The efficacy in bowel marking was significant for th e small bowel (P = .0001) and the cecum (P < .01), but not significant in all sequences for the sigmoid. In the postcontrast images, delinea tion of the uterus, the right-sided adnexa, the lymph nodes, and the p athologic lesions was significantly better (P < .01), but not all sequ ences showed an improvement in delineation of the other pelvic organs, After administration of ferumoxsil, the level of confidence in diagno sis was significantly higher (P = .0001), but no change in diagnosis w as made from the pre- to the postcontrast images, We found the oral co ntrast agent ferumoxsil to be well tolerated and effective in marking the bowel and in delineating the normal organs as well as the patholog ic lesions on pelvic MR images.