Dynamic Contrast Enhanced-Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting (DCE-MRF) Improves Detection of Induced Vascular Perfusion Reduction in a Mouse Breast Cancer Model.

Abstract

PURPOSE: Dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) can assess tumor perfusion using pharmacokinetic models. However, poor DCE-MRI reproducibility from reliance on conventional T-weighted MRI has limited clinical translation. We evaluated whether Dynamic Contrast Enhanced-Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting (DCE-MRF), which directly generates quantitative Trelaxation time constant maps, provides improved precision and statistical power for detecting treatment-induced vascular changes compared to conventional DCE-MRI. METHODS: Twenty female mice bearing orthotopic 4 T1 breast tumors were randomly assigned to DCE-MRF (n = 12) or conventional DCE-MRI (n = 8) cohorts. Both methods acquired matched spatial and temporal resolution (23-s) Tmeasurements at baseline, 3 h, and 48 h post-treatment with combretastatin A4 phosphate (120 mg/kg), a known vascular disrupting agent. Perfusion assessments were obtained with a pharmacokinetic Linear Reference Region Model (RKand k) and model-independent initial area under the curve assessments and compared using Wilcoxon signed-rank tests and Hedges' g effect sizes. RESULTS: DCE-MRF demonstrated 1.3-to-5.1-fold larger effect sizes for RKacross all regions and timepoint comparisons, and 1.3-to-1.9-fold larger effect sizes for tumor rim kcompared to conventional DCE-MRI. RKand kat 3 h post-treatment in all regions, detected significant vascular recovery for whole tumor RKand both whole tuomor and tumor rim for kat 48 h, whereas DCE-MRI only detected significant changes at 3 h. CONCLUSIONS: DCE-MRF's improved measurement precision and increased effect size translates directly to enhanced statistical power for detecting treatment-induced vascular changes, positioning it as a more reproducible tumor perfusion assessment for animal models and eventually cancer patients.