Simultaneous Assessment of Vessel Size Index, Relative Blood Volume and Vessel Permeability in a Mouse Brain Tumor Model Using a Combined Spin Echo Gradient Echo EPI Sequence and Viable Tumor Analysis

Fabian Kording¹, Claudia Weidensteiner¹, Andreas Lingnau², Stefan Zwick³, Wilfried Reichardt¹

Anti-angiogenic therapy in tumors can be monitored by dynamic contrast enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) or dynamic susceptibility contrast imaging (DSC-MRI) and vessel size imaging (VSI) to detect changes in tumor microvasculature. To acquire these biomarkers it is necessary to use multiple contrast agents until now. In this work, which is supported by the 2010 ISMRM Seed-Grant, these biomarkers are acquired simultaneously in vivo using a single shot gradient echo spin echo EPI sequence with only one Gd-CA injection. We tested the sequence in an in vivo brain tumor model and were able to acquire multiple datasets that were quantified in different tissue compartments after segmentation to account for tumor heterogeneity.