Yoshinori Kato1, Wenlian Zhu1,
Shruthi Shankar1, Venu Raman1, Susanta K. Sarkar2,
Zaver M. Bhujwalla1, Dmitri Artemov1
1JHU ICMIC Program, The Russell H.
Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, The Johns Hopkins
University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States; 2Medicines
Development, Oncology R&D, GlaxoSmithKline, Collegeville, PA, United
States
The
biological mechanisms underlying anti-angiogenic therapy when used in
combination with conventional cytotoxic treatment are still not entirely
understood. We have evaluated the
effect of anti-angiogenic therapy on tumor vasculature with MRI and tumor hypoxia
with optical imaging. Anti-angiogenic
therapy transiently decreased tumor hypoxia, but induced tumor hypoxia
post-treatment possibly due to the reduction of vascular volume in the
tumor. Our results provide further
insights as to whether anti-angiogenic therapy induces the normalization of
the tumor vasculature, which improves drug delivery by reducing hypoxia, an
important environmental factor in tumor resistance.