Accurate DCE-MRI Measurement of Glioblastoma Using Point-of-care Portable Perfusion Phantom

Study Summary

The goal of this study is to test whether a new device developed at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) can decrease the error in calculating blood flow of a brain tumor, leading to better prognosis. UAB radiological research team has been studying a cutting-edge imaging technique named dynamic contrast enhanced (DCE) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) , or DCE-MRI, over 10 years. This technique has been globally used to calculate blood flow of various tissues including tumors. Blood flow often serves as a critical indicator showing a disease status. For example, a brain tumor has typically high blood flow, so the magnitude of blood flow can be used as an indicator to identify the presence and aggressiveness of a brain tumor. In addition, an effective therapy can result in the alteration of the blood flow in a brain tumor. Therefore, the investigators may be able to determine whether the undergoing therapy is effective or not by measuring the blood flow in the brain tumor, and decide whether they need to continue the therapy or try a different one. However, unfortunately, the measurement of blood flow using DCE-MRI is often inaccurate. MRI scanners may use different hardware and software thus the measurement may be different across scanners. The measurement may also be different over time due to hardware instability. Therefore, the investigators propose to use an artificial tissue, named "phantom", together with a patient. The phantom has a constant blood flow thus it can serve as a standard. Errors, if it occurs, will affect the images of both the patient and the phantom. Therefore, the investigators will be able to correct the errors in the patient image using the phantom image. UAB radiological research team invented a new device for this purpose named point-of-care portable perfusion phantom, or shortly P4. The team recently demonstrated the utility of the P4 phantom for accurate measurement of blood flow in pancreatic cancer and prostate cancer. In thi

Primary Outcome

The goal is to measure the reproducibility of blood perfusion measurement in the glioblastoma using the two consecutive DCE-MRI scans with and without P4-based error correction. The pharmacokinetic (PK) parameter within the region of interest (ROI) will be averaged at each scan after P4-based error correction, and the mean values of two scans will be compared to calculate the coefficient of variation (%COV).

Conditions Studied

Interventions

• DEVICE Point-of-care Portable Perfusion Phantom (P4)

Study Locations (1)