Researchers bag $7M grant to study specialized MRI technique for lymphatic disease
A University of Virginia researcher has received a $6.5 million National Institutes of Health grant to advance a specialized imaging technique designed to improve the diagnosis and monitoring of lymphatic disorders.
UVA’s Rachelle Crescenzi, PhD, and her team will be studying the use of SALT MRI (sodium, adipose and lymphatic translational sciences), a noninvasive technique that combines sodium MRI with vascular and tissue imaging to measure sodium, fat and lymphatic fluid accumulation. The team hopes the technique could provide an objective way to identify lymphatic diseases earlier by detecting sodium buildup in affected tissues before severe swelling develops. The seven-year project will further refine SALT MRI for leg lymphedema, breast cancer-related lymphedema and lipedema, which currently has no diagnostic imaging test.
“For too long, patients with chronic swelling have been dismissed until severe swollen limbs become obvious. Imaging helps us look beneath the skin at early changes in tissue, and we saw something unexpected,” Crescenzi, with UVA’s department of radiology and medical imaging, said in a UVA news announcement July 27. “We saw sodium builds up in tissue with chronic swelling using a special MRI exam called sodium MRI. Together with vascular imaging, this exam could provide a noninvasive way to detect swelling earlier and identify new treatment strategies.”
The research builds on previous work that suggested patients with lymphatic disease accumulate higher levels of sodium and fat deposits in affected areas. In a prior observational study on leg lymphedema, the team found tissue sodium levels increased with disease severity and declined following standard physical therapy, indicating that sodium MRI may serve as a biomarker for disease progression and treatment response.
“It should not take 20 years to receive a diagnosis for lymphatic diseases,” Crescenzi added. “Sodium imaging could give us important clues to earlier diagnosis and also treatment options.”
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In addition to her background in journalism, Hannah also has patient-facing experience in clinical settings, having spent more than 12 years working as a registered rad tech. She began covering the medical imaging industry for Innovate Healthcare in 2021.