Hepatocellular carcinoma liver dynamic phantom for MRI

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common type of liver cancer. The effectiveness of treatment depends on detection in its early stages. The aim of this study is to fabricate an HCC liver dynamic phantom with tissue-mimicking materials for magnetic resonance imaging. Three gelatin phantoms with concentrations of 2.5%, 4.0%, and 5.0 wt% were made. All phantoms contained three main materials; hydroxyethyl cellulose as gelling agent; benzalkonium chloride as antibacterial agent; and propanediol as a solvent. Three samples of glycerol and agarose were made in three different sizes (2.0, 1.0, and 0.5 cm) to represent HCC samples. The chemical, mechanical (density and compression strength), electrical conductivity, and imaging properties of all three phantoms were studied over a period of six weeks. Dynamic contrast enhancement (DCE) was applied to study the HCC pattern. The chemical properties of the three phantoms are uniform. Density was stable for all phantom concentrations and of course was lowest in concentration 2.5 wt%. The change observed in T1 over six weeks was 8.15%, 13.07% and 9.98%, while the change in T2 was 12.37%, 19.40% and 10.27% in the concentrations of 2.5, 4.0 and 5.0 wt%, respectively. HCC samples behaved in a typical pattern after application of DCE and the smallest detection size using the Dixon sequence was 1 cm. The study succeeded in fabricating HCC with a dynamic phantom of the liver with the application of DCE on HCC in different stages.