Quantitative Perfusion MRI of Tumor Model in Mouse

Reshmi Rajendran¹, Jie Ming Liang¹, Torsten Reese², Hannes Hentze², Susan van Boxtel², Brian Henry², Kai-Hsiang Chuang¹

Quantitative perfusion MRI in mouse tumor models has been challenging due to low flow and movement/susceptibility artifacts in the abdomen. We optimized Arterial Spin Labeling MRI to map low perfusion in lumbar muscle of mice and applied the optimized sequence to map perfusion in a renal carcinoma xenograft mouse model. The results indicate that a perfusion rate of 347 ml/100g/min can be measured in muscle, whereas in xenograft tumors transplanted in the flank of nude mice, a heterogeneous perfusion rate was observed, with values ranging between 10-280 ml/100g/min. This optimized method could potentially be used to non-invasively investigate the heterogeneity of tumor perfusion in xenograft models or quantify alterations in perfusion in response to therapy. The continued development and application of such translational methods has the potential to enable further investigation into the complex biological processes underlying tumor biology in experimental animal models and the clinic.