Fluorine-19 tagging of pharmaceuticals for MRI detection

![CDATA[There exists a need for a non-invasive diagnostic tool, which maybe used for both screening and treatment monitoring of diseased cells. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a leading technique in this field, superior to the conventional diagnostics techniques - X-ray, mammography, sonography, and physical examination - due to the higher sensitivity of MRI for detecting disease, particularly for cancerous lesions. Standard MRI utilises signals from H atoms to produce an image are presently used. Thus, detection of an introduced species like a drug is difficult due to the high background signal from these H atoms in biological systems. MRI detection of low concentration species like diseased cells or introduced drugs is achieved by the use of contrast agents, which are either selective for diseased cells or attached to the drug. Contrast agents modify the inherent contrast of the image by alteration of the relaxation properties of the H atoms in close proximity to these agents. However, the image contrast is not related to concentration, thus mobility and bio-distribution of introduced drugs is limited with MRI.]]