Ashley M. Stokes1,
2, David A. Hormuth, II1, 3, Thomas E. Yankeelov1,
2, Christopher C. Quarles1, 2
1Institute
of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States; 2Radiology
and Radiological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United
States; 3Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville,
TN, United States
Tumor hypoxia, which is associated with poor treatment response and poor long-term prognosis, can be non-invasively imaged using 18FMISO PET, 64Cu-ATSM PET, and quantitative BOLD (qBOLD) MRI. We aimed to determine the optimal method for measuring hypoxic tumor fraction in rat brain tumor models. Preliminary data show promising results, where we found substantial tumor 18FMISO and 64Cu-ATSM activity and much lower qBOLD-derived tumor LSO2 values compared to surrounding normal tissue. The direct comparison of these imaging modalities is of great clinical interest as their ability to detect hypoxia differs due to the underlying targeting mechanisms in the PET and MRI methods.