Cornelius von Morze1, Peder E. Larson1,
Simon Hu1, Robert Bok1, Hikari Yoshihara1,
Andrei Goga2, Jan Henrik Ardenkjaer-Larsen3, Daniel B.
Vigneron1
1Department of Radiology
& Biomedical Imaging, UCSF, San Francisco, CA, United States; 2Department
of Medicine, Division of Hematology / Oncology, UCSF, San Francisco, CA,
United States; 3GE Healthcare, Hillerd, Denmark
The addition of perfusion information to metabolic information obtained by spectroscopic imaging of hyperpolarized [1-13C]pyruvate would be of great value in exploring links between perfusion and metabolism in cancer. We performed both dynamic imaging of the perfusion compound HP001, and co-polarized spectroscopic imaging of urea and pyruvate in preclinical murine cancer models. Spatially heterogenous perfusion was observed in the tumor tissues. A correlation between the urea and HP001 data confirmed the value of co-polarizing urea with pyruvate for simultaneous assessment of perfusion and metabolism.