Assessment of Tumor Microenvironment Using DCE MRI and 18Fluoromisonidazole PET Imaging in Neck Nodal Metastases

Jacobus F.A. Jansen¹, Heiko Schoder¹, Nancy Lee¹, Ya Wang¹, David G. Pfister¹, Matthew G. Fury¹, Hilda E. Stambuk¹, Jason A. Koutcher¹, Amita Shukla-Dave¹

The objective of this study was to investigate whether pre-therapy assessment of tumor microenvironment using DCE-MRI correlates with hypoxia as measured by 18F-MISO in neck nodal metastases. In 13 newly diagnosed patients with metastatic neck nodes, tumor perfusion and hypoxia was assessed using DCE-MRI and 18F-MISO PET imaging prior to chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Nodes with 18F-MISO uptake had significantly lower kep and Ktrans values (p<0.05). This initial evaluation of the preliminary result supports the hypothesis that the hypoxic nodes are poorly perfused compared to the nodes that had no hypoxia and may provide an alternative method to select hypoxic tissues.