Dynamic Contrast Enhanced & Diffusion Weighted MRI from Primary Tumors & Metastatic Cervical Lymph Nodes in Squamous Cell Carcinomas of the Head & Neck

Sanjeev Chawla¹, Sungheon Kim^1,2, Larry Dougherty¹, Sumei Wang¹, Laurie a Loevner¹, Harry Quon³, Harish Poptani¹

Twenty-eight patients with squamous cell carcinomas of head and neck underwent DCE- MRI with a radial acquisition and dynamic K-space weighted image reconstruction contrast technique and diffusion weighted imaging. Motion correction algorithms were applied to further reduce motion artifacts. Strong positive correlations in Ktrans (r=0.684, p<0.001) and ADC (r=0.407, p=0.031) from primary tumors and metastatic nodes were observed. These findings indicate that both lesions have similar physiological characteristics. Good quality Ktrans and ADC maps from primary tumors, located in regions prone to physiological motion, is feasible and may help in assessing these tumors for therapeutic response using these imaging markers.