Ilwoo Park1,2, Peder E. Larson2, Simon Hu1,2, Robert Bok2, Tomoko Ozawa3, John Kurhanewicz1,2, Daniel B. Vigneron1,2, Scott R. VandenBerg3, C David James3, Sarah J. Nelson1,2
1Bioengineering, University of California, San Francisco/Berkeley, San Francisco, CA, USA; 2Surbeck Laboratory of Advanced Imaging, Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA; 3Brain Tumor Research Center, Department of Neurological Surgery, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
The purpose of this study was to explore the feasibility of using 13C MRSI with hyperpolarized 13C1-pyruvate as a substrate for evaluation of in vivo brain tumor by comparing hyperpolarized 13C MRSI data from rats with and without intracranial human xenograft tumors. Significant differences in 13C metabolic characteristics were found between tumor and normal brain tissue. The SNR of lactate, pyruvate and total carbon were observed to be different between U-251 MG and U-87 MG model, in a manner that was consistent with the findings of immunochemical analysis, and the SNR of lactate showed strong correlation with proliferation marker (MIB-1).