Direct magnetic resonance imaging of histological tissue samples at 3.0T

✍ Scribed by Mark D. Meadowcroft; Shutong Zhang; Wanzhan Liu; Bu Sik Park; James R. Connor; Christopher M. Collins; Michael B. Smith; Qing X. Yang

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 632 KB
• Volume: 57
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0740-3194
• DOI: 10.1002/mrm.21213

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Direct imaging of a histological slice is challenging. The vast difference in dimension between planar size and the thickness of histology slices would require an RF coil to produce a uniform RF magnetic (B~1~) field in a 2D plane with minimal thickness. In this work a novel RF coil designed specifically for imaging a histology slice was developed and tested. The experimental data demonstrate that the coil is highly sensitive and capable of producing a uniform B~1~ field distribution in a planar region of histological slides, allowing for the acquisition of high‐resolution T~2~ images and T~2~ maps from a 60‐μm‐thick histological sample. The image intensity and T~2~ distributions were directly compared with histological staining of the relative iron concentration of the same slice. This work demonstrates the feasibility of using a microimaging histological coil to image thin slices of pathologically diseased tissue to obtain a precise one‐to‐one comparison between stained tissue and MR images. Magn Reson Med 57:835–841, 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.