Peder E. Z. Larson1, Robert Bok1, Adam B. Kerr2, Albert P. Chen3, Simon Hu1, Matthew L. Zierhut1, Michael Lustig2, John M. Pauly2, Sarah J. Nelson1, John Kurhanewicz1, Daniel B. Vigneron1
1Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California - San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA; 2Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA; 3Global Applied Science Lab, GE Healthcare, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
We have applied a new serial, time-resolved 13C MRSI acquisition method for metabolic imaging in the TRansgenic Adenocarcinoma of Mouse Prostate (TRAMP) mouse model in order to investigate the uptake and metabolic dynamics within tumors and in normal tissues following injection of hyperpolarized pyruvate. This new method is based on tailored multiband excitation pulses that preserve the magnetization over time. The prostate tumors have characteristically high lactate conversion and, as this study showed, a characteristic dynamic curve. The results demonstrated significant tumor heterogeneity, with variations in pyruvate perfusion/uptake and lactate conversion.