Utah Center for Advanced Imaging Research, Department of Radiology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
Utah Center for Advanced Imaging Research, Department of Radiology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
Magn Reson Imaging. 2024 Oct;112:38-46. doi: 10.1016/j.mri.2024.04.005. Epub 2024 Apr 9.
Measuring tissue oxygen concentration is crucial in understanding the pathophysiological process of hypoxia in head and neck cancer (HNC) and its significant role in cancer biology. This study aimed to determine the feasibility of T1 mapping using a variable flip angle (VFA) technique with stack of stars (SOS) trajectory sampling in HNC patients undergoing chemoradiotherapy (CRT).
To evaluate the ability of SOS acquisition to detect T1, a phantom study was conducted and compared to conventional Cartesian acquisition (CART). Additionally, four newly diagnosed patients were recruited and underwent two scans each at baseline and inter-treatment. The repeatability of SOS and CART acquisitions was assessed by comparing the T1 measurements of CSF from the baseline and intra-treatment MRI studies. The changes in ∆T1 of the tumors during air and oxygen inhalation between baseline and inter-treatment scans were also evaluated.
Our study found that the 3D VFA SOS sequence was effective in reducing motion artifacts compared to the conventional VFA sequence with CART sampling and the same scan time, as demonstrated by the results from the phantom and patient studies. In terms of repeatability, no significant correlation was observed between the variability in ΔT1 measurements of CSF obtained from SOS T1 maps. The SOS ΔT1 measurements showed higher consistency, as evidenced by the ICC values ranging from 0.52 to 0.92. The ∆T1 measurements on the primary tumors increased after the first CRT (p<0.05) for all patients who showed a positive treatment response, except for one patient (0.05<p<0.1) who did not respond to the treatment.
The 3D VFA SOS sequence is a feasible and reliable method for T1 mapping in HNC patients undergoing CRT. The use of this technique could potentially aid in the assessment of treatment response and contribute to improving patient outcomes.
测量组织氧浓度对于理解头颈部癌症（HNC）缺氧的病理生理过程及其在癌症生物学中的重要作用至关重要。本研究旨在确定在接受放化疗（CRT）的 HNC 患者中使用可变翻转角（VFA）技术和堆叠星（SOS）轨迹采样进行 T1 映射的可行性。
为了评估 SOS 采集检测 T1 的能力，我们进行了一项体模研究，并与传统笛卡尔采集（CART）进行了比较。此外，我们招募了 4 名新诊断的患者，每位患者在基线和治疗中分别进行了两次扫描。通过比较基线和治疗中 MRI 研究中 CSF 的 T1 测量值，评估了 SOS 和 CART 采集的重复性。还评估了基线和治疗中扫描期间肿瘤在空气和氧气吸入之间的 ∆T1 变化。
我们的研究发现，与具有 CART 采样和相同扫描时间的传统 VFA 序列相比，3D VFA SOS 序列在减少运动伪影方面更为有效，这是通过体模和患者研究的结果证明的。在重复性方面，从 SOS T1 图获得的 CSF 中 ΔT1 测量值的变化没有明显的相关性。SOS ΔT1 测量值显示出更高的一致性，ICC 值范围从 0.52 到 0.92。所有表现出阳性治疗反应的患者的主要肿瘤的 ∆T1 测量值在第一次 CRT 后增加（p<0.05），除了一名患者（0.05<p<0.1）对治疗无反应。
3D VFA SOS 序列是一种可行且可靠的方法，可用于在接受 CRT 的 HNC 患者中进行 T1 映射。该技术的使用可能有助于评估治疗反应，并有助于改善患者的预后。
