Abstract #4099

Evaluating the Response to the Radiation Therapy of the Head and Neck Neoplasms by Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced MRI

Shin-Lei Peng¹, Chih-Feng Chen², Ho-Ling Liu³, Fu-Nien Wang¹

¹Biomedical Engineering and Environmental Sciences, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, Taiwan; ²Department of Radiology, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital Kaohsiung Medical Center, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Taiwan; ³Medical Imaging and Radiological Sciences , Chang Gung University, Taoyuan, Taiwan, Taiwan

Most of the DCE-MRI studies analyzed averaged signal time curves from a tumor region in a single slice. However, the averaged signal could not totally represent the heterogeneity of the whole tumor. The goal of this study was analyzing the histogram distribution of all initial slopes of enhancement from pixel-by-pixel signal time curves and distinguishing the malignant tumor from radiation necrosis in the hand and neck neoplasms. And the results show that the histogram distribution improved the specificity of diagnosis and provided the information about the heterogeneity of tumor compositions.