The Assessment of Tumor Cellularity using DSC-MRI

Introduction: The use of DSC-MRI for the assessment of tumor perfusion can be complicated when the blood-brain barrier is leaky, which can result in additional extravascular T2* effects well after the contrast agent (CA) initial bolus has passed through tissue [1]. The resulting DSC-MRI signals are then influenced by the extravascular compartmentalization of CA. We propose that such signals can be analyzed to extract imaging metrics sensitive to the spatial distribution of tumor cells within tissue (e.g. cell density, intercellular distance). The goal of this study was to investigate the relationship between the extravascular T2* effects and tumor cellularity using simulations as well as in vitro and in vivo studies.