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Abstract #3977

Monitoring of Cryptococcus Lung Infection with IntraGate MRI

Greetje Vande Velde1, Tom Dresselaers1, Eric Verbeken2, Katrien Lagrou3, Uwe Himmelreich1

1Biomedical NMR unit/ MoSAIC, KU Leuven, Leuven, Flanders, Belgium; 2Morphology and Molecular Pathology, UZ Leuven, Leuven, Flanders, Belgium; 3Experimental Laboratory Medicine, UZ Leuven, Leuven, Flanders, Belgium

Cryptococcus is an encapsulated yeast that causes life-threatening disease. Cryptococcosis mostly affects the lung of a host and may spread to the brain, but this pathogenesis is still largely enigmatic. For the first time we were able to visualize onset and progression of pneumonial cryptococcosis with IntraGate MRI, long before symptomatic disease ocurred. Being able to dynamically follow-up disease progression will greatly enhance cryptococcosis research, as MRI can identify the relevant time frame for molecular and histological analysis of BBB crossing of cryptococs with very good time resolution.

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Keywords

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