Institut für Radiologie und Kinderradiologie
Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin
Campus Mitte
Charitéplatz 1,10117 Berlin
Telephone: +49 30 450 527 375
Email: matteo.ippoliti@charite.de
Quantitative characterization of tumor flow-metabolism mismatch by PET and MRI
PIs: Makowski, Brenner, Abram
Application area: Cancer
Modalities: PET, MRI, PET-MR
Background: Simultaneous acquisition of PET and MRI with a PET-MRI hybrid system has the potential to improve the accuracy of detection and quantitative characterization of flow-metabolism mismatch, as simultaneous acquisition avoids spatial registration errors and also eliminates additional variance associated with consecutive imaging at different time points. The project is centered on PET-MRI hybrid imaging for simultaneous acquisition of metabolism and blood flow/perfusion measures, as previous studies suggested that detection and quantitative characterization of flow-metabolism mismatch is clinically useful in defining the stage and potential responsiveness to treatment of various tumor entities.
Aim: To optimize the flow/metabolism acquisitions and gather several parametric maps (regional cerebral blood volume, regional cerebral blood flow and mean transit time) in order to quantitatively characterize flow/metabolism mismatch in tumors and identify biomarkers for treatment responsiveness.
Methods: The project is centered on PET/MRI hybrid imaging for simultaneous acquisition of metabolism (by the PET component) and blood flow measures (by the MRI component). Generation of the arterial input function for tracer kinetic modelling of (dynamic) PET in simultaneously acquired PET/MRI data. This will build on MRI-based delineation and motion tracking of a large artery within the acquisition field-of-view. Optimization of simultaneous FDG-PET/ perfusion weighted MRI for generation of parametric maps of regional cerebral blood volume, regional cerebral blood flow and mean transit time. Multivariate image analysis aimed at characterizing flow/metabolism mismatch.