Development of a polyvinyl alcohol hydrogel for temperature measurement by MRI

This paper describes the development of a Polyvinyl alcohol hydrogel (PVA-H) model for calibration and measurement of temperature using image contrast on MRI using DMSO/H₂O as a solvent to alter the freezing and melting points of PVA-H. Tissues exposed to temperature changes above 41°C or below 0°C exhibit increasingly extensive and irreversible damage, depending on the exposure duration. MR images can provide a map of temperature if there is sufficient tissue signal. To evaluate treatment principles using temperature changes (hyperthermia, cryotherapy), a model simulating tissue may be useful to provide a reproducible test environment. PVA-H is water soluble and can be seen on MRI. It can be used to construct complicated shapes such as vascular structure, soft tissues, and so on. Therefore, PVA-H can be useful to measure temperatures and assume the distribution of temperature under treatment. In this paper, we applied PVA-H as a temperature detector and calibrated temperature from image contrast. The results exhibit good capability as a temperature detector not only of high temperature (around 41°C), but also of low temperature (as low as -23°C).