Kyrre E. Emblem1,
Pavlina Polaskova1, Dominique L. Jennings1, Elizabeth
R. Gerstner2, Tracy T. Batchelor2, Rakesh K. Jain3,
A. Gregory Sorensen1
1A. A. Martinos
Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA,
USA; 2Pappas Center for Neuro-Oncology, Massachusetts General
Hospital, Boston, MA, USA; 3Department of Radiation Oncology,
Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
It is hypothesized that anti-VEGF therapy in combination with radiation and chemotherapy can normalize brain tumor vascularity and restore impaired blood flow characteristics. In this study, we have compared MR-derived flow characteristics in patients treated with an anti-angiogenic agent to that of a patient control group not receiving anti-angiogenic therapy. Our results support the hypothesis of vascular normalization, where the patient group undergoing anti-VEGF treatment showed increased CBF during the vascular normalization window.