The Loss of Sodium Homeostasis and Apoptosis During Rodent Glioma Chemotherapy

Victor D. Schepkin¹, Cathy W. Levenson², Fabian F. Calixto-Bejarano², William W. Brey¹, Petr L. Gor'kov¹

The goal of the present study was to assess the hypothesis that an in vivo increase of intracellular sodium is one of the first and a crucial stage during cancer therapy. Experiments were performed using high resolution sodium and diffusion MRI at 21.1T and rodent glioma model. During efficient BCNU chemotherapy, tumor sodium reaches a plateau indicating a complete loss of Na homeostasis at day 4 following the initiation of therapy. Dose dependent responses of intracellular sodium can serve as a very early biomarker for the onset of apoptosis and forecast tumor elimination.