Demonstration of the Relationship between Oxygen Delivery & Contrast Agent Delivery in Human Glioma using Combined OEMRI & DCE-MRI

Katherine Frances Holliday^1,2, Gerard Thompson^1,2, Samantha Jane Mills^1,2, Giovanni Buonaccorsi^1,2, Alan Jackson¹,², Josephine H. Naish^1,2, Geoffrey J. M. Parker^1,2

Hypoxia has been linked to tumour progression and metastasis and is also known to affect sensitivity to treatment. Oxygen-enhanced MRI is a proposed method to investigate oxygen delivery and consumption in tumour tissue non-invasively that is based on observing changes in R₁ during the breathing of 100% oxygen. In this study, patients with glioma underwent both OEMRI and DCE-MRI. Oxygen-enhanced R₁ change was calculated on a voxel-wise basis, and regions with significant changes in both directions were identified. Correlations were found between these R₁ changes and contrast agent uptake during DCE-MRI, suggesting identification of both poorly-perfused hypoxic regions and well-perfused, well-oxygenated regions.