Monitoring Treatment Response of Prostate Cancer Bone Metastases with the Functional Diffusion Map

Carolin Reischauer¹, Johannes M. Froehlich², Christoph A. Binkert², Peter Boesiger¹, Andreas Gutzeit²

Most patients with advanced prostate cancer feature bone metastases that are incurable. Thus, novel therapies are constantly developed for which treatment success has to be assessed. The present work demonstrates, in a prospective clinical study of patients with known skeletal metastases, that the functional diffusion map (fDM) allows monitoring treatment response. Thereby, the fDM segments the tumor into three regions with significantly increased, significantly decreased, and unchanged apparent diffusion coefficients (ADCs). In the present study large regions with significantly increased ADCs were observed under therapy indicating treatment success. Furthermore, the spatial distribution of tumor response could be successfully derived.