Identification of Hypoxic Regions In Vivo in the Prostate

Radka Stoyanova¹, Ellen Ackerstaff², HyungJoon Cho², Jason A. Koutcher², Alan Pollack¹

We present an application of Pattern Recognition techniques to identify the characteristic temporal pattern of hypoxia in Dynamic Contrast Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging (DCE-MRI). The approach is confirmed in DCE-MRI data from an animal model, acquired concurrently with several complementary imaging modalities including pimonidazole staining. The technique is also applied to DCE-MRI data from the tumor of a prostate cancer patient where a similar temporal pattern is uncovered in parts of the tumor. Our results suggest that by applying this approach we can potentially deconvolve the hypoxic temporal pattern in in vivo data from patients with prostate cancer.