The contrast agents are either renal or hepatically excreted media, which stay in the intravascular/extracellular tissue compartment. The enhancement in the blood continues for as long as the contrast agent remains in the blood stream.
E.g. Dotarem®, Magnevist®, Omniscan®, ProHance®.

See Contrast Medium, Contrast Agents and Blood Pool Agents.

[This entry is marked for removal.]

GE Medical Systems and Amersham announced in April 2004 the completion of a share exchange acquisition of Amersham Health by GE. The result of this acquisition is the new GE Healthcare, based in the UK, totally owned by General Electric (GE).

Amersham Health, was the imaging diagnostics and therapy business of Amersham plc.

The rapid improvements in instrumentation, which have added benefit to the use of extracellular fluid agents such as Omniscan™, have also diminished the market potential for blood pool products such as Clariscan™. As a consequence, Amersham decided to discontinue the development of Clariscan™.