CEST - MRI is an MRI technique that enables detection of proteins and metabolites in the body

protein CEST

Chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) effects such as amide-CEST effect originating from proteins correlate with intracellular pH and protein concentration. Correlations that are highly interesting for cancer diagnosis. Comparison with gadolinium contrast enhancing longitudinal relaxation time-weighted images revealed that amide-CEST contrast forms a unique contrast that delineates tumor regions and show remarkable overlap with the gadolinium contrast enhancement.

glucoCEST

The idea of the technique is to administer natural D-glucose as a contrast agent instead of conventional contrast agents. Glucose can be detected by CEST imaging, thus, the promise of the technique is to give a subject a drink of soda with high sugar and see if tumors light up due to their enhanced metabolism.

The glucoCEST project at MPI is part of the EU Project GLINT <link typo3 www.glint-project.eu _blank>www.glint-project.eu

For both applications we develop fast imaging techniques for 3 Tesla, 7 Tesla, and 9.4 Tesla human scanners, as well as preclinical systems. Evaluation software is shared on www.cest-sources.org.
Find previous publications on pubmed  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=CEST+zaiss and more information on the CEST project website at MPI.