Abstract #0166

Assessing Breast Cancer Angiogenesis in vivo: Which MRI Biomarkers Are Relevant?

Eugene Kim¹, Jana Cebulla², B. Douglas Ward³, Kevin Rhie², Jiangyang Zhang², Arvind P. Pathak²,⁴

¹The Whitaker Biomedical Engineering Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States; ²The Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins University; ³Department of Biophysics, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, United States; ⁴The Johns Hopkins University in vivo Cellular and Molecular Imaging Center Program

There is a crucial need for noninvasive biomarkers of breast cancer angiogenesis to evaluate the efficacy of new anti-angiogenic therapies in vivo. Here, we validated in vivo steady-state susceptibility contrast (SSC)-MRI biomarkers of angiogenesis in an orthotopic human breast cancer model against the 3D vascular morphology obtained from high-resolution micro-computed tomography (CT). Based on cross-validation analysis, the simple parameters that only require ΔR₂ and ΔR₂* measurements were better predictors of their CT analogs than were the complex parameters that require additional measurements. Thus, a stand-alone SSC-MRI experiment provides promising candidates for noninvasive, in vivo biomarkers of breast cancer angiogenesis.