Tumor characterization in small animals using magnetic resonance-guided dynamic contrast enhanced diffuse optical...

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Medical Imaging
• Optical Imaging

Background:

• Tumor characterization is crucial for effective treatment planning.
• Differentiating viable from necrotic tissue within tumors remains a challenge.
• Hybrid imaging systems offer potential for improved diagnostic accuracy.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate a magnetic resonance (MR)-guided near-infrared dynamic contrast enhanced diffuse optical tomography (DCE-DOT) system.
• To simultaneously monitor optical (ICG) and MR (Gd-DTPA) contrast agents for accurate co-registration.
• To characterize tumors by recovering ICG enhancement kinetics using MR anatomical information.

Main Methods:

• Development of a combined MR-DOT system for simultaneous imaging.
• Administration of indocyanine green (ICG) and Gd-diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA) contrast agents.
• Imaging of R3230 breast tumors in Fisher rats using the hybrid system.

Main Results:

• Accurate co-registration of MR and DOT data was achieved.
• For the first time, ICG enhancement kinetics were recovered from DCE-DOT data using MR anatomical priors.
• The system successfully differentiated between viable and necrotic tumor tissues based on ICG kinetics.

Conclusions:

• The hybrid MR-guided DCE-DOT system enables accurate tumor characterization.
• Utilizing MR anatomical information improves the differentiation of viable and necrotic tumor tissues.
• This approach holds promise for enhanced tumor assessment and treatment monitoring.