Magnetic particle imaging (MPI) is a new imaging technique that detects the spatial distribution of magnetic nanoparticles (MNP) with the option of high temporal resolution. MPI relies on particular MNP as tracers with tailored characteristics for improvement of sensitivity and image resolution. For this reason, we developed optimized multicore particles (MCP 3) made by coprecipitation via synthesis of green rust and subsequent oxidation to iron oxide cores consisting of a magnetite/maghemite mixed phase. MCP 3 shows high saturation magnetization close to that of bulk maghemite and provides excellent magnetic particle spectroscopy properties which are superior to Resovist® and any other up to now published MPI tracers made by coprecipitation. To evaluate the MPI characteristics of MCP 3 two kinds of tube phantoms were prepared and investigated to assess sensitivity, spatial resolution, artifact severity, and selectivity. Resovist® was used as standard of comparison. For image reconstruction, the regularization factor was optimized, and the resulting images were investigated in terms of quantifying of volumes and iron content. Our results demonstrate the superiority of MCP 3 over Resovist® for all investigated MPI characteristics and suggest that MCP 3 is promising for future experimental in vivo studies.
