Analysis of pharmacokinetics of Gd-DTPA for dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging

The pharmacokinetics (PK) of the contrast agent Gd-DTPA administered intravenously (i.v.) for contrast-enhanced MR imaging (DCE-MRI) is an important factor for quantitative data acquisition. We studied the effect of various initial bolus doses on the PK of Gd-DTPA and analyzed population PK of a lower dose for intra-subject variations in DCE-MRI. First, fifteen subjects (23-85 years, M/F) were randomly divided into four groups for DCE-MRI with different Gd-DTPA dose: group-I, 0.1 mmol/kg, n = 4; group-II, 0.05 mmol/kg, n = 4; group-III, 0.025 mmol/kg, n = 4; and group-IV, 0.0125 mmol/kg, n = 3. Sequential fast T1 mapping sequence, after a bolus i.v. Gd-DTPA administered, and a linear T1-[Gd-DTPA] relationship were used to estimate the PK of Gd-DTPA. Secondly, MR-acquired PKs of Gd-DTPA from 58 subjects (28-80 years, M/F) were collected retrospectively, from an ongoing study of the brain using DCE-MRI with Gd-DTPA at 0.025 mmol/kg, to statistically analyze population PK of Gd-DTPA. We found that the PK of Gd-DTPA (i.v. 0.025 mmol/kg) had a half-life of 37.3 ± 6.6 min, and was a better fit into a linear T1-[Gd-DTPA] relationship than higher doses (up to 0.1 mmol/kg). The area under the curve (AUC) for 0.025 mmol/kg was 3.37 ± 0.46, which was a quarter of AUC of 0.1 mmol/kg. In population analysis, a dose of 0.025 mmol/kg of Gd-DTPA provided less than 5% subject-dependent variation in the PK of Gd-DTPA. Administration of 0.025 mmol/kg Gd-DTPA enabled us to estimate [Gd-DTPA] from T1 by using a linear relationship that has a lower estimation error compared to a non-linear relationship. DCE-MRI with a quarter dose of Gd-DTPA is more sensitive to detect changes in [Gd-DTPA].