Sungheon Kim1, Lindsey DeCarlo2,
Gene Young Cho1, Jens H. Jensen1, Daniel K. Sodickson1,
Linda Moy1, Silvia Formenti3, Robert J. Schneider2,
Eric E. Sigmund1
1Center for Biomedical Imaging,
Radiology, New York University, New York, NY, United States; 2Microbiology,
New York University, New York, NY, United States; 3Radiation
Oncology, New York University, New York, NY, United States
Effective
delivery of therapeutic drug is often impeded by physiological barriers
including elevated interstitual fluid pressure (IFP). In this study, we
investigated the feasibility of using Intra-Voxel-Incoherent-Motion (IVIM)
diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) to measure tumor blood flow and the
association of IVIM diffusion coefficients with IFP. From a study of 10 mice
with 4T1 mouse mammary tumor model, strong correlations (R2 >
0.64) were observed between the elevated IFP (> 5 mmHg) and diffusion
coefficients estimated using monoexponential as well as biexponential
diffusion models. This result suggests a high potential of DWI parameters as
surrogate markers for IFP.