Proton Diffusion Weighted and Sodium MRI of Growing Intrahepatic and Subcutaneous Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Andriy Babsky¹, Shenghong Ju¹, Stacy Bennett¹, Bharath Atthe¹, Beena George¹, Gordon McLennan¹, Navin Bansal¹

Effects of untreated tumor growth on 1) water apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), 2) single-quantum (SQ) ²³Na MRI, and 3) triple-quantum-filtered (TQF) ²³Na MRI were compared in intrahepatic (IH) and subcutaneous (SC) hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in rats. The ADC measurement of IH-HCC is very sensitive to physiological motion. The ADC increased progressively with growth in SC HCC but not in IH HCC. SQ and TQF ²³Na MRI signals increased with growth in both the tumor models. SQ and TQF ²³Na MRI techniques are more reliable compared to water ADC measurements for hepatic tumor studies because of their insensitivity to motion.