Evaluations of Tumor Acidosis Within In Vivo Tumor Models Using Parametric Maps Generated with AcidoCEST MRI

We aimed to develop pixelwise maps of tumor acidosis to aid in evaluating extracellular tumor pH (pHe) in cancer biology. MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 mouse models were imaged during a longitudinal study. AcidoCEST MRI and a series of image processing methods were used to produce parametric maps of tumor pHe, and tumor pHe was also measured with a pH microsensor. Sufficient contrast-to-noise for producing pHe maps was achieved by using standard image processing methods. A comparison of pHe values measured with acidoCEST MRI and a pH microsensor showed that acidoCEST MRI measured tumor pHe with an accuracy of 0.034 pH units. The MCF-7 tumor model was found to be more acidic compared to the MDA-MB-231 tumor model. The pHe was not related to tumor size during the longitudinal study. These results show that acidoCEST MRI can create pixelwise tumor pHe maps of mouse models of cancer.