A preliminary study for clinical pharmacokinetics of oral fluorine anticancer medicines using the commercial MRI system F-19-MRS

These preliminary studies of dynamic natural abundance F-19-magnetic resona nce spectroscopy (F-19-MRS) on 5-FU based medicines were performed in the h uman liver using commercial 1.5 T MRI equipment. A single tuned, custom-mad e circular shape surface coil with a diameter of 15 cm operating at 60 MHz was used for the F-19-MRS study. Localized proton shimming with a whole bod y coil was performed with adequate volume to include the observing area of the surface coil, and the line width of the water signal was less than 40 H z. Very different spectroscopic appearance patterns of 5-FU were observed. We examined whether the pharmacokinetics in the liver of orally administere d 1-hexylcarbamoyl-5-fluoro uracil (HC FU) differ from those of orally admi nistered 5'-deoxy-5-fluorouridine (5'-DFUR). This preliminary study suggest ed the F-19-MRS technique could be a useful method of evaluating in vitro t he metabolism of 5-FU based medicines.