Assessment of Tumor Hypoxia with DCE-MRI: A Preclinical Study on Human Melanoma Tumor Lines

Tormod Andr Mjelde Egeland¹, Jon-Vidar Gaustad¹, Berit S. Mathiesen¹, Einar Kre Rofstad¹

Purpose: To study the potential usefulness of DCE-MRI for assessing the extent of tumor hypoxia. Methods: Gd-DTPA-based DCE-MRI was performed on human melanoma xenografts from 8 different tumor lines grown orthotopically in mice. v_e and K^trans from Tofts model were obtained on a voxel-by-voxel-basis, and compared with the radiobiologically hypoxic fraction (HF_rad). Results: A strong linear correlation between v_e and HF_rad (p<0.002 for all quartiles) and a non-linear relationship between K^trans and HF_rad was found. Conclusions: This study suggests that it may be possible to obtain information on tumor oxygenation in patients from DCE-MRI studies.