Quantitative Assessment of Tumor Blood Flow Changes in a Murine Breast Cancer Model After Adriamycin Chemotherapy Using Contrast-Enhanced Destruction-Replenishment Sonography

Objectives-The purpose of the study was to detect tumor blood flow changes after chemotherapy with contrast-enhanced destruction-replenishment sonography. Methods-Twenty-four MCF-7 breast cancer-bearing nude mice were included in this study. Animals received either adriamycin or sterile saline and underwent contrast-enhanced sonography before and after treatment using a destruction-replenishment technique. A monoexponential function, y = A(1 - e(-beta t)), was used to fit the replenishment kinetics, where the plateau signal intensity A reflects the percent blood volume; the time constant 13 reflects the average speed of blood; and their product A*beta reflects the nutrient blood flow. Tumor blood perfusion was compared to measurements of cell density and microvascular density: Results-Volumes of the treated tumors were significantly reduced after 7 days of adriamycin treatment compared with the control tumors (P < .001). Before adriamycin administration, there was no significant difference in blood perfusion between the treated and control groups (P > .05). Treatment with adriamycin resulted in a significant decrease in A, beta, andA*beta (P < .001) compared with the control tumors. The tumor cell density and microvascular density estimated by pathologic slices were significantly lower in the treated tumors than in the control tumors (P < .001). Conclusions-Quantification of tumor blood flow using contrast-enhanced destruction-replenishment sonography shows the potential to evaluate tumor responses to chemotherapy.