Comparison of the blood level of endogenous paramagnetics in health and pathology using proton magnetic relaxation

An experimental study is made of the longitudinal proton relaxation timeT ₁ in human serum in health and pathology as a function of the protein concentration using partially lyophilized samples. A comparison of the results with those obtained with modeled aqueous protein solutions and extrapolation of the dependences to the zero concentration demonstrate that the concentration of paramagnetic admixtures is the same in groups of healthy subjects and patients with malignant neoplasms who have reliably differentT ₁ values in native samples. There is no difference in the longitudinal proton relaxation time of the nonaqueous component of the serum between these groups. Translated fromByulleten' Eksperimental'noi Biologii i Meditsiny, Vol. 120, N ^o 11, pp. 557–560, November, 1995