GPU-accelerated nonparametric kinetic analysis of DCE-MRI data from glioblastoma patients treated with bevacizumab

Dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) is often used to examine vascular function in malignant tumors and noninvasively monitor drug efficacy of antivascular therapies in clinical studies. However, complex numerical methods used to derive tumor physiological properties from DCE-MRI images can be time-consuming and computationally challenging. Recent advancement of computing technology in graphics processing unit (GPU) makes it possible to build an energy-efficient and high-power parallel computing platform for solving complex numerical problems. This study develops the first reported fast GPU-based method for nonparametric kinetic analysis of DCE-MRI data using clinical scans of glioblastoma patients treated with bevacizumab (Avastin®). In the method, contrast agent concentration-time profiles in arterial blood and tumor tissue are smoothed using a robust kernel-based regression algorithm in order to remove artifacts due to patient motion and then deconvolved to produce the impulse response function (IRF). The area under the curve (AUC) and mean residence time (MRT) of the IRF are calculated using statistical moment analysis, and two tumor physiological properties that relate to vascular permeability, volume transfer constant between blood plasma and extravascular extracellular space (K(trans)) and fractional interstitial volume (ve) are estimated using the approximations AUC/MRT and AUC. The most significant feature in this method is the use of GPU-computing to analyze data from more than 60,000 voxels in each DCE-MRI image in parallel fashion. All analysis steps have been automated in a single program script that requires only blood and tumor data as the sole input. The GPU-accelerated method produces K(trans) and ve estimates that are comparable to results from previous studies but reduces computational time by more than 80-fold compared to a previously reported central processing unit-based nonparametric method. Furthermore, it is at least several orders of magnitudes faster than standard parametric methods that perform compartmental modeling. This finding indicates that the GPU-based method can significantly shorten the computational times required to assess tumor physiology from DCE-MRI data in preclinical and clinical development of antivascular therapies.