Potential Uses of Ferumoxytol in the Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Epilepsy

Ferumoxytol (Feraheme ®) is an iron oxide nanoparticle approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2009 for treating anemia, but has found excellent off-label uses as contrast agent in the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of many neurological disorders, in particular multiple sclerosis [1], brain tumor [2], and stroke [3]. These MRI studies take advantage that ferumoxytol remains mainly in the blood pool for a long time (half-life: 15 hours). Two types of ferumoxytol-based brain MRI have been described [4] :a) cerebral blood volume (CBV) measurement at high spatial and temporal resolutions within the first few hours after ferumoxytol injection, and b) iron concentration measurement to detect abnormal iron uptake from blood to parenchyma at 24-48 hours after ferumoxytol injection. However, these uses have not come to the full attention of radiologists and neurologists, as only short time has passed since the clinical approval of ferumoxytol.