Real-Time Interleaved Temperature and ADC Measurements for Early Assessment of Tissue Viability During Prostate Thermal Therapies

Juan Camilo Plata¹, Andrew Holbrook¹, Punit Prakash², Vasant Salgaonkar², Peter Jones², Chris Diederich², Graham Sommer¹, Kim Butts Pauly¹

Monitoring tissue viability during thermal therapies is critical for assessing treatment progress and safety. Temperature and thermal dose measurements do not provide physiological response information and hence are indirect measurements of tissue viability. Diffusion weighted MRI (DWI) has been used to assess tissue viability following thermal treatment of the prostate. Following treatment, dead tissue presents a 36% reduction in the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC). We obtained interleaved ADC and temperature measurements in order to determine the onset of the 36% reduction and whether it can be used as an indicator of tissue necrosis.