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Abstract

The use of computed tomography (CT) for vascular imaging is critical in medical emergencies requiring urgent diagnostic decisions, such as cerebral ischemia and many cardiovascular diseases. Small-molecule iodinated contrast media are often injected intravenously as radiopaque agents during CT imaging to achieve high contrast enhancement of vascular systems. The rapid excretion rate of these agents is overcome by injecting a significantly high dose of iodine, which can have serious side effects. Here we report a simple method to prepare blood-pool contrast agents for CT based on dendrimers for the first time using tetraiodobenzene derivatives as potent radiopaque moieties. Excellent in vivo safety has been demonstrated for these small (13-22nm) unimolecular water-soluble dendritic contrast agents, which exhibit high contrast enhancement in the blood-pool and effectively extend their blood half-lives. Our method is applicable to virtually any scaffold with suitable surface groups and may fulfill the current need for safer, next-generation iodinated CT contrast agents.

Author information

You S1, Jung HY1, Lee C1, Choe YH1, Heo JY2, Gang GT3, Byun SK4, Kim WK4, Lee CH5, Kim DE6, Kim YI7, Kim Y8.​

1Biomedical Translational Research Center, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Daejeon 305-806, Republic of Korea.

2Biomedical Translational Research Center, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Daejeon 305-806, Republic of Korea; Department of Chemistry, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon 305-701, Republic of Korea.

3Laboratory Animal Resource Center, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Daejeon 305-806, Republic of Korea.

4Functional Genomics Research Center, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Daejeon 305-806, Republic of Korea; Korea University of Science and Technology (UST), Daejeon 305-350, Republic of Korea.

5Laboratory Animal Resource Center, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Daejeon 305-806, Republic of Korea; Korea University of Science and Technology (UST), Daejeon 305-350, Republic of Korea.

6Department of Neurology, Dongguk University Ilsan Hospital, Goyang 410-773, Republic of Korea.

7Department of Radiology, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul 110-744, Republic of Korea.

8Biomedical Translational Research Center, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Daejeon 305-806, Republic of Korea; Korea University of Science and Technology (UST), Daejeon 305-350, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: ykim@kribb.re.kr