MR Vascular Fingerprinting with Hybrid Gradient-Spin Echo Dynamic Susceptibility Contrast MRI for Characterization of Microvasculature in Gliomas

Characterization of tumor microvasculature is important in tumor assessment and studying treatment response. This is possible by acquiring vascular biomarkers with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) based on dynamic susceptibility contrast (DSC). We propose magnetic resonance vascular fingerprinting (MRVF) for hybrid echo planar imaging (HEPI) acquired during the first passage of the contrast agent (CA). The proposed approach was evaluated in patients with gliomas, and we simultaneously estimated vessel radius and relative cerebral blood volume. These parameters were also compared to the respective values estimated using the previously introduced vessel size imaging (VSI) technique. The results of both methods were found to be consistent. MRVF was also found to be robust to noise in the estimation of the parameters. DSC-HEPI-based MRVF provides characterization of microvasculature in gliomas with a short acquisition time and can be further improved in several ways to increase our understanding of tumor physiology.

Automated summary

Characterizing tumor microvasculature is crucial for tumor assessment and treatment response studies. This study proposes a magnetic resonance vascular fingerprinting (MRVF) technique using hybrid echo planar imaging (HEPI) based on dynamic susceptibility contrast (DSC). The approach was tested in patients with gliomas, enabling the simultaneous estimation of vessel radius and relative cerebral blood volume. The results were consistent with those obtained using the vessel size imaging (VSI) technique, and MRVF showed robustness in noise estimation. DSC-HEPI-based MRVF allows for efficient characterization of glioma microvasculature and can be further improved for better understanding of tumor physiology.