The value of hyoscine butylbromide in abdominal MR imaging with and without oral magnetic particles

Abstract.

Purpose: The purpose of this article was to assess the impact of intravenous (IV) anticholinergic hyoscine butylbromide in abdominal magnetic resonance (MR) imaging with oral magnetic particles (OMP) [ABDOSCAN, Ferristene (USAN), Nycomed Imaging AS, Oslo, Norway].

Materials and methods: In 31 patients with abdominal tumors, T1-weighted spin-echo (SE) images (SE 600/15; 1.5 T) were obtained without and with IV hyoscine butylbromide (20 mg) before and after administration of 800 ml of OMP. Two blinded readers assessed motion artifacts, bowel-wall visualization, and lesion delineation on the four sets of T1-weighted images. The two-tailed Wilcoxon paired sample test was used for statistical analysis (p < .05).

Results: Hyoscine butylbromide reduced motion artifacts and improved bowel-wall visualization on precontrast and OMP-enhanced images at a statistically significant level (p= 0.0006–0.037). The lowest degree of artifacts was recorded on OMP images with hyoscine butylbromide. OMP with hyoscine butylbromide significantly improved lesion delineation compared to studies without antiperistaltic drug before (p= 0.019) and after OMP administration (p= 0.01).

Conclusions: The authors conclude that the use of IV hyoscine butylbromide is recommended for OMP-enhanced abdominal MR imaging with T1-weighted SE pulse sequences at 1.5 T.