Objective: To select juices for use as a negative oral contrast agent in Magnetic Resonance Cholangiopancreatography (MRCP)

Materials and Method: Various kinds of juice were tested in phantoms, and biochemically analysed for their iron or manganes concentrations. Pineapple juice, which contained an average amount of 0.663 mg/L of iron and 6.114 mg/L of manganese, was chosen and used on 19 volunteers with a mean age of 38.6 years. MRCP before drinking and at between 10 and 15 minutes after drinking 240 mL of pineapple juice was performed with 1.5 Tesla machine, using the single shot thick slab technique. Images were graded by a radiologist, using a criterion based on the degree of suppressing stomach and duodenal signals.

Results: MRCP after drinking pineapple juice at between 10 and 15 minutes had a significantly (p < 0.001) reduced signal intensity in the stomach and duodenum providing a much improved image quality.

Conclusion: Pineapple juice can be used as a negative oral contrast agent to improve the quality of MRCP images.