Lars Gerigk1,
Armin Nagel2, Armin Biller1, Julien Dinkel1,
Lydia Schuster1, Thomas Hauser1, Michael Puderbach1,
Marco Essig1, Stefan Delorme1, Michael Bock2
1Radiology, German Cancer Research
Institute, Heidelberg, Baden-Wrttemberg, Germany; 2Medical Physics
in Radiology, German Cancer Research Institute, Heidelberg,
Baden-Wrttemberg, Germany
Malignant
gliomas are highly vascularized, which makes them a target for new
anti-angiogenic agents. MRI therapy monitoring will require more
sophisticated methods than measuring the extent of contrast enhancement,
because these agents change the blood-brain-barrier. Using the advantage of 7
T, direct imaging of the tumor vasculature becomes feasible. In our newly
developed clinical imaging protocol, high-resolution T2w and T1w images show
the internal morphology of the lesion, whereas TOF-MRA and SWI visualize the
arterial and venous intratumoral vasculature. Automatic co-registration of
MRA and morphology proved to be a simple, fast and reliable method to evaluate
tumor vascularization.