Speaker: Matthias Schabel

Title: Quantitative Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging - Applications in Oncology

Abstract

The rapidly growing arsenal of anti-cancer agents under development for targeted therapies has sparked interest in methods for vivo monitoring of response, both as a means of identifying therapeutic effect in prospective compounds and as a means of identifying response or lack thereof in patients early enough to enable fine- tuning of their therapeutic regimen. Conventional response-to-therapy criteria such as tumor size or volume are coarse measures and lack sensitivity to the tumor characteristics being targeted. Of particular interest are antiangiogenic and antineovascular agents that inhibit neovascularization or lead to regression of immature tumor vasculature. Quantitative Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced MRI (DCE- MRI) provides a means to directly measure vascular permeability, extracellular extravascular leakage space, and microvessel density. In this presentation, I will discuss the capabilities, limitations, and pitfalls encountered in DCE-MRI studies, and present preliminary results from a Phase II study of dual carboplatin-combretastatin chemotherapy in patients with advanced solid tumors.