Sushma Agrawal1, Rishi Awasthi2, Anup Singh3, Ram Kishore Singh Rathore3, Rakesh Kumar Gupta2
1Department of Radiotherapy, Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India; 2Department of Radiodiagnosis, Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India; 3Department of Mathematics and statistics, Indian institute of technology, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India
DCE imaging prior to radiotherapy and three months of completion of radiotherapy were performed in 21 patients of locally advanced head and neck cancers.The DCE MRI parameters in terms of tissue blood flow (TBF), tissue blood volume (TBV), corrected TBV, bolus arrival time (BAT) and b were correlated with T, N, stage group of the patient and with response to treatment. TBF, TBV and corrected TBV were higher for higher T stage, but not for N stage, and overall stage group .These parameters were higher for complete responders than partial responders at both primary and nodes. Our study reflects TBF and TBV as predictors of outcome in head and neck cancer patients but needs validation in more patients to get a more robust conclusion