Sinusoidal endothelium and microbubble: Kupffer imaging and bioeffect

Heterogeneous delayed enhancement of hepatic parenchyma after intravenous infusion of sonographic contrast agent: a new hypothesis

“…Sebbene si tratti essenzialmente di sostanze "blood-pool", il loro comportamento nelle diverse fasi post-contrastografiche è sovrapponibile a quello dei mezzi di [2,3]; ipotesi comunque queste che devono essere avvalorate da ulteriori studi di farmacocinetica. Le tecniche di imaging ecografico contrasto-specifiche sono due: la prima è quella dell'imaging non-distruttivo in cui l'immagine viene costruita sfruttando la risposta non lineare delle microbolle, senza che queste vengano distrutte; la seconda tecnica utilizza l'imaging distruttivo, che determina la distruzione, la fusione e lo "splitting" delle microbolle [4].…”

“…After microbubble injection, three different phases of perfusion are seen, as in dynamic computed tomography CT of the liver with iodinated contrast medium: -Arterial phase (20-30 s): enhancement in this phase is due to the presence of the contrast agent in the small arteries -Portal and late phases (60 and 180 s): sonographic contrast agents do not pass into the interstitial space but remain in the vessels; therefore, the enhancement seen in the portal and especially the late phases seems to be due to persistence of the microbubbles in the sinusoids or to their uptake by the Kupffer cells and reticuloendothelial system [2,3]. These hypotheses, however, still need to be validated by pharmacokinetic studies.…”

Delayed contrast enhancement of hepatic parenchyma after intravenous sonographic contrast agent: unusual phenomenon. Case report and review of literature

“…Three different phases of perfusion can be differentiated after injection of the microbubbles (most commonly used in the liver): arterial (20–30 s), portal (45–90 s), and late phase (> 180 s). Sonographic microbubbles cannot pass into the interstitial space but remain in the vessels, which allows for the assessment of microvascularization [ 10 , 11 ]. The elimination of the gas in SonoVue™ occurs through the lung [ 12 , 13 ] while the shell is metabolized in the liver.…”

Applications of Ultrasound Microbubbles in the Spleen

“…The behaviour of SonoVue may be analogous to that of the heat-damaged red blood cells used in nuclear medicine, which are highly spleen-specific and are not taken up by the liver, unlike colloid-labelled tracers (Massey and Stevens 1991;Person and Bender 2000). Phase contrast microscopic studies by Iijima et al (2003) with in vitro hepatic macrophages suggested that these cells were selective for microbubble agents that were phagocytosed and that this process was possibly dependent on the structure of the agent.…”