Effects of Bevacizumab on the Tumor Vascularity Assessed with DCE-MRI in Recurrent Anaplastic Astrocytomas

Weiting Zhang¹, Teri N. Kreisl¹, Jeffrey Solomon², Richard C. Reynolds¹, Daniel R. Glen¹, Robert W. Cox¹, Howard A. Fine¹, John A. Butman¹

DCE-MRI was used to monitor the effects of bevacizumab on physiologic measures of tumor vascularity, such as blood brain barrier permeability, represented as Ktrans , and vascular perfusion represented as fpv, in patiens with recurrent anaplastic astrocytoma. Bevacizumab dramatically reduces Ktrans, fpv, and enhancing tumor volume as early as 4 days and this effect persisted at least for 4 weeks. Tumors with larger baseline enhancing tumor volume and greater baseline Ktrans were related to poorer prognosis.