Evaluation of different tracer kinetic models in DCE-MRI of rectal cancer

Abstract

Dynamic Contrast Enhanced-Magnetic Resonance Imaging (DCE-MRI) is widely used in clinical investigation for assessing angiogenesis evolution of tumors in brain, breast and muscle-skeletal system. Anyway, the relationship between microvasculature and DCE-MRI parameters seems to be still unclear in the case of rectal cancer. The aim of this paper is to evaluate several pharmacokinetic models of DCEMRI and their relationship with the grading of rectal cancer. In this study eleven patients suffering from rectal cancer have been subjected to DCE-MRI analysis. Grading of the tumors has been evaluated also by means of independent methodologies currently used in clinical protocols. Statistical analysis has been performed in order to investigate the possibility to separate groups of patient having similar grading. Preliminary results suggest that an opportune subset of pharmacokinetic parameters could be of help in tumor grading. © 2009 Springer-Verlag.