Purpose: To evaluate the differences in enhancement of the abdominal solid organ and the major vessel on dynamic contrast‐enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE‐MRI) obtained with gadolinium ethoxybenzyldiethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid (Gd‐EOB‐DTPA: EOB) and gadolinium diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid (Gd‐DTPA) in the same patients.Materials and Methods: A total of 13 healthy volunteers underwent repeat assessments of abdominal MR examinations with DCE‐MRI using either Gd‐DTPA at a dose of 0.1 mmol/kg body weight or EOB at a dose of 0.025 mmol/kg body weight. DCE images were obtained at precontrast injection and in the arterial phase (AP: 25 seconds), portal phase (PP: 70 seconds), and equilibrium phase (EP: 3 minutes). The signal intensities (SIs) of liver at AP, PP, and EP; the SIs of spleen, renal cortex, renal medulla, pancreas, adrenal gland, aorta at AP; and the SIs of portal vein and inferior vena cava (IVC) at PP were defined using region‐of‐interest measurements, and were used for calculation of signal intensity ratio (SIR).Results: The mean SIRs of liver (0.195 ± 0.140), spleen (1.35 ± 0.353), renal cortex (1.58 ± 0.517), renal medulla (0.548 ± 0.259), pancreas (0.540 ± 0.183), adrenal gland (1.04 ± 0.405), and aorta (2.44 ± 0.648) at AP as well as the mean SIRs of portal vein (1.85 ± 0.477) and IVC (1.16 ± 0.187) at PP in the EOB images were significantly lower than those (0.337 ± 0.200, 1.99 ± 0.443, 2.01 ± 0.474, 0.742 ± 0.336, 0.771 ± 0.227, 1.26 ± 0.442, 3.22 ± 1.20, 2.73 ± 0.429, and 1.68 ± 0.366, respectively) in the Gd‐DTPA images (P < 0.05 each). There was no significant difference in mean SIR of liver at PP between EOB (0.529 ± 0.124) and Gd‐DTPA (0.564 ± 0.139). Conversely, the mean SIR of liver at EP was significantly higher with EOB (0.576 ± 0.167) than with Gd‐DTPA (0.396 ± 0.093) (P < 0.001).Conclusion: Lower arterial vascular and parenchymal enhancement with Gd‐EOB, as compared with Gd‐DTPA, may require reassessment of its dose, despite the higher late venous phase liver parenchymal enhancement. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2009;29:636–640.

OBJECTIVE. The purpose of our study was to evaluate the process and frequency of newly developed hypervascular hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in serial gadoxetic acid–enhanced MRI examinations in patients with chronic liver disease during clinical follow-up periods. MATERIALS AND METHODS. After review of 341 MRI examinations in 100 patients with chronic liver diseases who underwent gadoxetic acid–enhanced MRI at least twice during the observation period, 32 newly developed hypervascular HCCs in 14 patients were retrospectively evaluated. Serial MRI examinations before detecting hypervascular HCC were evaluated to determine whether hypervascular HCC showed the presence of a hypoin-tense nodule on the hepatobiliary phase and hypovascularity (high-risk nodule) before hyper-vascularization. The size of newly developed hypervascular HCCs and the duration of hyper-vascularization from initial detection of a high-risk nodule were compared between HCCs with and without the presence of a high-risk nodule. RESULTS....