Tumor oxygenation predicts cancer therapy response and malignant phenotype. This has spawned a number of oxymetries. Comparison of different oxymetries is crucial for the validation and understanding of these techniques. Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) imaging is a novel technique for providing quantitative high-resolution images of tumor and tissue oxygenation. This work compares sequences of tumor pO 2 values from EPR oxygen images with sequences of oxygen measurements made along a track with an Oxylite oxygen probe. Four-dimensional (three spatial and one spectral) EPR oxygen images used spectroscopic imaging techniques to measure the width of a spectral line in each image voxel from a trityl spin probe (OX063, Amersham Health R&D) in the tissues and tumor of mice after spin probe injection. A simple calibration allows direct, quantitative translation of each line width to an oxygen concentration. These four-dimensional EPR images, obtained in 45 minutes from FSa fibrosarcomas grown in the legs of C3H mice, have a spatial resolution of f1mm and oxygen resolution of f3 Torr. The position of the Oxylite track was measured within a 2-mm accuracy using a custom stereotactic positioning device. A total of nine images that involve 17 tracks were obtained. Of these, most showed good correlation between the Oxylite measured pO 2 and a track located in the tumor within the uncertainties of the Oxylite localizability. The correlation was good both in terms of spatial distribution pattern and pO 2 magnitude. The strong correlation of the two modalities corroborates EPR imaging as a useful tool for the study of tumor oxygenation.
Purpose-Tumor hypoxia has long been known to produce resistance to radiation. In this study, electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) oxygen imaging was investigated for its power to predict the success of tumor control depending on tumor oxygenation level and radiation therapy dose.Methods and Materials-Thirty-four EPR oxygen images were obtained from the legs of C3H mice bearing 0.5 ml FSa fibrosarcomas under both normal (air breathing) and clamped tumor conditions. Under the same conditions as those during which the images were obtained, tumors were irradiated to a variety doses near the FSa TCD 50 . Tumor tissue was distinguished from normal tissue using co-registration of the EPR oxygen images with spin-echo MRI images of the tumor and/or stereotactic localization. Tumor voxel statistics in the EPR oxygen image included mean and median pO 2 , and the fraction of tumor voxels below the specified pO 2 values of 3, 6 and 10 torr. Bivariate logistic regression analysis using radiation dose and each of the EPR oxygen image statistics determined which best separated treatment failure from success.Results and Conclusions-TCD 50 measurements were similar to those found in the literature for this syngeneic tumor. Bivariate analysis of 34 tumors demonstrated that tumor cure correlated with dose (p=0.004) and with <10 torr hypoxic fraction (p=0.023). Together, radiation dose and EPR image hypoxic fraction separate the population of FSa fibrosarcomas which are cured from those which fail, thus predicting curability.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.