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Introduction:
Head and Neck cancers constitute 6% of all cancers. Dynamic contrast enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) has the potential to measure the physiological properties of the tissue, like vascularization, vascular leakage, blood vessel volume fraction and blood flow, all of which play important roles in oncology. DCE-MRI is an effective MR imaging technique suitable for characterizing tumor angiogenesis, which is a critical process in tumor growth and metastasis. DCE-MRI technique is performed by acquiring MR images during the passage of an exogenous contrast agent (CA) in the tissue of interest. When the acquisition time is short, it allows to get valuable information about perfusion, tracer uptake and wash-out rate (WOR). Quantitative measures of tumor vascularity could be computed by investigating the signal intensity change during CA passage with respect to the signal intensity before CA injection in the tissue of interest and a reference artery, representing the arterial input function (AIF). Accurate definition of the behavior of the tissue during CA passage highly depends on selected tracer kinetic parameters, which can be modeled using pharmacokinetic (PK) modeling approach, and the AIF selection strategy. Here, we aim to introduce the proper PK model, describing hemodynamic characteristics of head and neck cancer, and AIF selection approach.
