MRI Based Lung Perfusion as a Tool to Evaluate Lung Function in Patients

Undergoing Radiotherapy for Pulmonary Neoplasms

Xiutao Shi, Warren D’Souza, and Nilesh MistryPoster #: 1077

Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Maryland School of MedicineBaltimore, MD 20201

Aim and Methods

• Demonstrate the utility of MRI based lung perfusion imaging for evaluating lung function during radiation treatment

• Methods– 5 patients with NSCLC were studied– Perfusion imaging was carried out using dynamic contrast

enhanced (DCE) MRI at 3 time points: before treatment, end of treatment, and 3-6 months after treatment

– 3D pulmonary blood flow (PBF) and pulmonary blood volume (PBV) maps were evaluated

– Preliminary analysis was carried out to establish a relationship between perfusion data and patient attribute

Age (yr) PBF before

treatment (a.u.)PBF at end of

treatment (a.u.)PBF in follow-up

scan (a.u.)% decrease at

end of treatment

Pat. 1 68 4.36 2.97 2.18 32Pat. 2 66 1.43 0.88 0.81 38Pat. 3 87 1.79 0.89 0.87 50Pat. 4 54 1.35 0.82 2.54 39Pat. 5 46 3.71 0.77 2.35 79

Results• Reduction in PBF was

observed in all patients by end of treatment

• Younger patients were able to recover the lost PBF 3-6 months after treatment, but not the older patients

• No such trend was found in the PBV data

Discussion

• MRI based lung perfusion imaging, which imposed no additional dose to the patients, shows the potential as a tool to study the longitudinal lung function changes during radiation treatment

• Early results show that patient age may play a role in the recovery of lung function

• PBF is a better metric to study lung function than PBV• Further studies and more patients are needed to

establish a clear relationship