Assessment of Early Tumor Response to Chemotherapy using MR Elastography (MRE)

Jun Chen¹, Kiaran P. McGee¹, Yogesh K Mariappan¹, Kevin J. Glaser¹, Stephen M. Ansell¹, Kay M. Pelletier¹, Deanna M. Grote¹, Richard L. Ehman¹

In the treatment of cancer with chemotherapy, a key strategy is to identify as early as possible chemotherapy induced tumor response. Traditionally, therapeutic response is derived from imaging based volumetry, requiring a significant time delay from chemotherapy administration to response detection. This work describes the application of magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) based measurement of tumor stiffness to detect early response to chemotherapy. Results indicate that a statistically significant change in MRE-based tumor stiffness can be detected approximately four hours post therapy and suggests that this measure may be a new and highly sensitive biomarker of chemotherapy tumor response.