Abstract

Recent progress in clinical islet transplantation has accentuated the need for the development of a dependable eans to characterize islet product after it is isolated from a donor pancreas and before it is infused into an islet transplant recipient. Especially the process of optimizing techniques used to determine the quality, functionality, integrity, cellular identity and viability of isolated pancreatic islets by using dynamic micro MR imaging would be valuable to the islet transplantation team. We have developed methods of high resolution Manganese (Mn) enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MEMRI) for visual documentation of the islet functionality and have attempted to characterize its MR properties.

Keywords: Islet transplantation, MEMRI, T1 mapping.