Abstract
The barium sulfate has been playing an important role as the contrast medium in gastrointestinal radiography and disease diagnosis. However, its application has been gradually reduced due to the limitation of its imaging effect and the progress of other imaging techniques. Here, the liquid metal gallium was proposed as an improved contrast agent, which was applied in the in vivo digestive tract radiography of the mice for the first time. Under the CT scanning, the gallium produced excellent contrast effect intuitively. According to the records of discharge time, the tissue sections of organs, the survival state and body weight, the liquid metal was proven to be capable and safe for gastrointestinal radiography. Further, the mixture of the gallium and the barium sulfate has been tested, which showed better performance in both contrast and detail. Therefore, with the characteristics of better imaging contrast effect and acceptable safety, the gallium and its mixture with the barium sulfate might be useful as potential candidates for digestive tract contrast agent in animal experiments, even possibly as alternative contrast agents for clinical use.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bryk D, Roska JC (1969) Upper gastrointestinal studies with acid and alkaline barium sulfate suspensions. Radiology 92:832–848. https://doi.org/10.1148/92.4.832
Collery P, Keppler B, Madoulet C, Desoize B (2002) Gallium in cancer treatment. Crit Rev Oncol Hemat 42:283–296. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1040-8428(01)00225-6
Davis W, Nisbet P, Hare C, Cooke P, Taylor SA (2011) Non-laxative CT colonography with barium-based faecal tagging: is additional phosphate enema beneficial and well tolerated? Br J Radiol 84:120–125. https://doi.org/10.1259/bjr/23626544
Gollub MJ, Bains MS (1997) Barium sulfate: a new [old] contrast agent for diagnosis of postoperative esophageal leaks. Radiology 202:360–362. https://doi.org/10.1148/radiology.202.2.9015057
Gupta AK, Guglani B (2005) Imaging of congenital anomalies of the gastrointestinal tract. Indian J Pediatr 72:403–414. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02731737
Kim MJ et al (2009) Efficacy of barium-based fecal tagging for CT colonography: a comparison between the use of high and low density barium suspensions in a Korean population—a preliminary study. Korean J Radiol 10:25–33. https://doi.org/10.3348/kjr.2009.10.1.25
Leng HJ, Wang X, Ross RD, Niebur GL, Roeder RK (2008) Micro-computed tomography of fatigue microdamage in cortical bone using a barium sulfate contrast agent. J Mech Behav Biomed 1:68–75. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmbbm.2007.06.002
Liu FJ, Yu YZ, Yi LT, Liu J (2016) Liquid metal as reconnection agent for peripheral nerve injury. Sci Bull 61:939–947. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-016-1090-2
Long CT, Page RB, Howard AM, McKeon GP, Felt SA (2010) Comparison of gastrografin to barium sulfate as a gastrointestinal contrast agent in red-eared slider turtles (Trachemys Scripta Elegans) vet. Radiol Ultrasound 51:42–47. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1740-8261.2009.01619.x
Lu Y et al (2015) Transformable liquid-metal nanomedicine. Nat Commun 6:10066. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms10066
Nicolaou S, Kai B, Ho S, Su J, Ahamed K (2005) Imaging of acute small-bowel obstruction. Am J Roentgenol 185:1036–1044. https://doi.org/10.2214/Ajr.04.0815
O’Connor SD, Summers RM (2007) Revisiting oral barium sulfate contrast agents. Acad Radiol 14:72–80. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acra.2006.10.002
Rubesin SE, Levine MS, Laufer I (2008) Double-contrast upper gastrointestinal radiography: a pattern approach for diseases of the stomach. Radiology 246:33–48. https://doi.org/10.1148/radiol.2461061245
Sun XY, Yuan B, Rao W, Liu J (2017) Amorphous liquid metal electrodes enabled conformable electrochemical therapy of tumors. Biomaterials 146:156–167. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biomaterials.2017.09.006
Sun XY, He ZZ, Deng ZS, Zhou YX, Liu J (2018) Liquid metal bath as conformable soft electrodes for target tissue ablation in radio-frequency ablation therapy. Minim Invasive Ther 27:233–241. https://doi.org/10.1080/13645706.2017.1393437
Verron E, Bouler JM, Scimeca JC (2012) Gallium as a potential candidate for treatment of osteoporosis. Drug Discov Today 17:1127–1132. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drudis.2012.06.007
Wang Q, Yu Y, Liu J (2014a) Delivery of liquid metal to the target vessels as vascular embolic agent to starve diseased tissues or tumors to death. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1408.0989
Wang Q, Yu Y, Pan KQ, Liu J (2014b) Liquid metal angiography for mega contrast X-ray visualization of vascular network in reconstructing in-vitro organ anatomy. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng 61:2161–2166. https://doi.org/10.1109/Tbme.2014.2317554
Wang Q, Yu Y, Liu J (2018) Preparations, characteristics and applications of the functional liquid metal materials. Adv Eng Mater. https://doi.org/10.1002/adem.201700781
White F, Westmorland A, Roe G, Wolstenhulme S, Sheridan M (2013) Barium swallow examination: radiographer and radiologist compliance to national diagnostic reference levels. Radiography 19:218–222. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.radi.2013.03.004
Yi LT, Liu J (2017) Liquid metal biomaterials: a newly emerging area to tackle modern biomedical challenges. Int Mater Rev 62:415–440. https://doi.org/10.1080/09506608.2016.1271090
Yi LT, Jin C, Wang L, Liu J (2014) Liquid-solid phase transition alloy as reversible and rapid molding bone cement. Biomaterials 35:9789–9801. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biomaterials.2014.08.048
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51605472, No. 61675236, No. 81971585). The authors would like to thank Song Zhao of the First Hospital of Hebei Medical University for his help in the analysis about the histological results.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Liu, H., Yu, Y., Wang, W. et al. Novel contrast media based on the liquid metal gallium for in vivo digestive tract radiography: a feasibility study. Biometals 32, 795–801 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10534-019-00212-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10534-019-00212-5