Pierluigi Di Giovanni1, Trevor Sean Ahearn1,
Scott I K Semple2, Che A. Azlan1,3, Fiona J. Gilbert1,
Thomas W. Redpath1
1Radiology, University of Aberdeen,
Aberdeen, Scotland, United Kingdom; 2Medical Physics, University
of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom; 3Biomedical
Imaging, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Among
the physiological features found in tumors is the increased interstitial
fluid pressure (IFP). Dynamic contrast enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) can be used to
generate a parametric map of the volume transfer constant going from the
intravascular space into the lesion interstitial space (Ktransin) and in opposite direction (Ktransout). We
have studied the spatial distribution of the ratio Ktransout/Ktransin in breast cancers. Our parametric
maps reveal that those tumors having a central non-enhancing region show a
very similar pattern in the imbalance between the two transfer constants. We
argue that what we observe is linked to the spatial distribution of IFP.