Purpose : Generally, tissue contrast enhancement patterns depend on the T1 relaxation. The T1 relaxation effect increases with the contrast agent concentration resulting in high contrast to noise ratio. Therefore, the aim of our study was to to evaluate improvement of contrast using gadobutrol in cardiac MRI viability scans. Materials and Methods : Two-hundred eighty-four patients who were administrated with gadoterate meglumine with the gadolinium concentration of 0.5mmol/mL(standard group) and 120 patients administrated with gadobutrol with the gadolinium concentration of 1.0mmol/mL were included in this study(study group). The total amount of gadolinium was the same as 0.1mmol/kg in both groups(0.2cc was injected in 0.5mmol/mL and 0.1cc was injected in 1mmol/mL contrast media). Signal intensities and noise of normal myocardium (NM) and the left ventricular cavity (LV) were measured. The ROIs were as follows (1) ROI of normal myocardium, (2) ROI of the left ventricle, (3) ROI of background. Then, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) were compared between standard and study group. MRI scanning was performed using a 1.5T MRI scanner (Magnetom Avanto, Siemens ). The body coil was used as the transmitter, and a dedicated 32-channel cardiac coil was used as the receiver. The acquisition of MRI scanning was performed with the following protocol: short axis IR-true FISP (TR/ TE:800/3.42, 8mm thickness with 2mm interslicegap, FOV:150×100㎟, matrix size:256×192, flip angle:25 degrees). The Statistical significance of parametric data was determined using Student t-test. A two-sided P value of less than 0.05 was considered to indicate statistical significance. All statistical analysis was performed using the SPSS software package (version 18; SPSS, Chicago, IL). Results : Mean SNR of the study group was higher in the study group than standard group by 25.13% in (NM) and 30.74% in (LV). (mean difference -1.61, -22.26; standard deviation 0.66, 4.86; t value -2.449, -4.580; p<.05, p<.01). Mean CNR was also higher in the study group by 31.29%(mean difference -20.65; standard deviation 4.42; t value -4.675; p<.01). And, the difference of SNR and CNR between study group and standard group were statistically significant. Conclusions : Both SNR and CNR were higher using gadobutrol administration. Considering the involuntary movement of the heart, this study can be said innovative. This study has limitation because the patient population is restricted to patients with suspected heart disease. This study has significance as the usefulness and the diagnostic value of gadobutrol was proved proposing measures to increase the diagnostic value. This study suggests the increased the diagnostic value using gadobutrol for the cardiac delayed-enhancement study. and, Additional research is required for patients with various diseases.

This study was carried out to develop convenient and reproducible methods for identifying the genetic relationship among germplasms of Panax species based on molecular genetics. Using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) analyses, genetic polymorphism of the Panax species was investigated with following cultivars and accessions, such as Chunpoong, Yunpoong, Kopoong, Sunpoong, and Kumpoong in domestic cultivars, Hwangsuk, Jakyung and Suckju in domestic accessions, and Panax quinquefolius L. and Panax japonicus C.A. Meyer in foreign introduced accessions, respectively. Specific DNA fragments ranging from 200 to 3,000 base pairs in size could be obtained with various ISSR and RAPD primers under the optimized PCR conditions. The dissimilarity coefficients among the genetic polymorphisms of ginseng cultivars and accessions were calculated from 0.26 to 0.90 in RAPD and from 0.12 to 0.89 in ISSR analysis, respectively. Eleven plant samples were grouped siblings together with cultivars and parents based on cluster analysis of genetic distance depending on genetic property such as origin of the species. In results, both RAPD and ISSR analyses were useful for identifying the genetic relationship among cultivars and accessions of Panax species at DNA level.