T₁-mapping characterization of two tumor types

T₁ mapping is a quantitative method to characterize tissues with magnetic resonance imaging in a quick and efficient manner. It utilizes the relaxation rate of protons to depict the underlying structures within the imaging frame. While T₁-mapping techniques are used with some frequency in areas such as cardiac imaging, their application for understanding malignancies and identifying tumor structures has yet to be thoroughly investigated. Utilizing a saturation recovery method to acquire T₁ maps for two different tumor models has revealed that longitudinal relaxation mapping is sensitive enough to distinguish between normal and malignant tissue. This is seen even with decreased signal/noise ratios using small voxel sizes to obtain high-resolution images. In both tumor models, it was revealed that relaxation mapping recorded significantly different relaxation values between regions encapsulating the tumor, muscle, kidney, or spleen, as well as between the cell lines themselves. This indicates a potential future application of relaxation mapping as a method to fingerprint various stages of tumor development and may prove a useful measure to identify micro-metastases.