How to use liver-specific MR contrast agents

EOB-Primovist is a hepatocyte-specific MR contrast agent developed for combined T1-weighted dynamic and hepatocyte-specific imaging. EOB-Primovist-enhanced MR imaging shows better diagnostic performance than dynamic MDCT, contrast-enhanced US, and SPIO-enhanced MR imaging. Many of hypovascular early HCCs are hypointense in the hepatocyte phase, and could be possibly distinguishable from high-grade dysplastic nodules. SPIO is known to be a negative enhancer of MR images due to its strong T2 and T2*relaxation effect, but can be used as a positive enhancer on T1-weighted images due to its strong T1 relaxation effect. It allows differentiation between hemangiomas and malignant tumors, which is a drawback of EOB-Primovist. SPIO is still a problem-solving modality in the diagnosis of focal hepatic lesions.