Contribution of Perfusion in Diffusion Weighted MRI of Orthotopic and Subcutaneous Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Rat

Andriy Babsky¹, Beena George¹, Navin Bansal¹

A biexponential model for analysis of non-invasive diffusion weighted ¹H MRI provides important information about neoplastic transformation in capillary liver tissue perfusion and water molecular diffusion. Fast and slow components of water apparent diffusion coefficients (ADC) were separated in the normal rat liver, intrahepatic (IH), and subcutaneous (SC) hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In IH-HCC, ADC_fast was lower compared to the healthy liver, while ADC_slow did not differ in liver, IH-, and SC-HCC. Simultaneous monitoring of water ADC changes in orthotopic and subcutaneous HCCs may be useful, but the possibility of location-based physiological and metabolic differences must be recognized.