Investigation of a Logistic Model for T2* Dynamic Susceptibility Contrast Magnetic Resonance Imaging (dscMRI) Perfusion Studies

Abstract

There are a number of T1- and T2-based dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging pharmacokinetic modeling approaches to study cancer microvasculature. Alternatively, model-free approaches offer an easy, quantitative assessment of microcirculation. In this work, we investigate a 6-parameter model-free approach applied to a T2*-weighted echo-planar imaging bolus response curve. We tested this new approach on a small cohort of patients with clinically diagnosed primary rectal carcinoma before adjuvant chemoradiotherapy and surgical excision. Comparison with healthy muscle tissue shows that logistic parameters P1/P2, P4, and P5 offer good discrimination between tumor and healthy tissue. Bolus response logistic parameters P4 and P5 have been implicated in previous T1-based works as being important in the assessment of cancer malignancy. Further comparison of T2* parameters with signal attenuation amplitude (maximum signal drop) and percentage baseline signal loss also corroborates the models' ability to quantify the microenvironment.

Dynamic multi-echo DCE- and DSC-MRI in rectal cancer: Low primary tumor Ktrans and ΔR2* peak are significantly associated with lymph node metastasis

“…8 Dynamic susceptibility contrast (DSC) MRI is most commonly used to measure perfusion in the brain. 9 However, studies have also shown the feasibility of using this approach to assess microvasculature in rectal cancer 10 and phenotypic characteristics of breast tumors. [11][12][13] Recognizing that rectal tumors are highly angiogenic, it is hypothesized that DSC-MRI may provide valuable information for assessing pathophysiological properties in this patient group.…”