Rami Robert Hallac1, Yao Ding1,
Qing Yuan1, Roderick W. McColl1, Jayanthi Lea2,
Robert D. Sims1, Paul T. Weatherall1, Ralph P. Mason1
1Radiology, UT Southwestern Medical
Center at Dallas, Dallas, TX, United States; 2Ob-Gyn Oncology, UT
Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, Dallas, TX
BOLD
MRI is sensitive to tumor vascular oxygenation and may provide an indication
of tumor hypoxia. We have studied normal volunteers and women with locally
advanced cervical cancer to evaluate the response to breathing oxygen. Tumors
showed a BOLD signal intensity response between 2.5 and 20 % at 3 T. Normal
cervical tissue and uterine lining also responded, but muscle tended to show
no signal enhanced in T2* weighted signal. T2* maps showed R2* = 4.233.2s-1
in normal cervix. Overall the procedure was well tolerated providing a
non-invasive approach to investigating tumor oxygenation.