Multi-Modality Imaging in the Prediction of Response to Systemic Treatment in Colorectal Cancer: Preliminary Results

E.G.W. ter Voert¹, L. Heijmen², C.J.A. Punt², A. Heerschap¹, H.W.M. van Laarhoven²

Fifty percent of the patients with colorectal cancer develop distant metastases, mainly in the liver. Early response monitoring is desirable as only a subset of patients responds to the potentially toxic and expensive systemic treatment. The aim of this study is to predict response to systemic treatment in patients with colorectal liver metastases using pre-treatment measurements of the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) and the T₂^*. The preliminary results indicate, after analyzing 79 lesions in 25 patients, that high pre-treatment ADC values and possibly low pre-treatment T₂^* values in tumor tissue predict good treatment outcome.