Abstract

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) is a fatal disease with very poor prognosis. Development of sensitive and noninvasive methods to monitor tumor progression in PDA is a critical and unmet need. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can noninvasively provide information regarding underlying pathophysiological processes such as necrosis, inflammatory changes and fibrotic tissue deposition.A genetically engineered KPC mouse model that recapitulates human PDA was used to characterize disease progression. MR measures of T1 and T2 relaxation times, magnetization transfer ratio (MTR), diffusion and chemical exchange saturation transfer were compared in two separate phases i.e. slow and rapid growth phase of tumor. Fibrotic tissue accumulation was assessed histologically using Masson's trichrome staining. Pearson correlation coefficient (r) was computed to assess the relationship between the fibrotic tissue accumulation and different MR parameters.There was a negative correlation between amide proton transfer signal intensity and tumor volume (r =?-?0.63, p =?0.003) in the slow growth phase of the tumor development. In the terminal stage of rapid growth phase of the tumor development MTR was strongly correlated with tumor volume (r =?0.62, p =?0.008). Finally, MTR was significantly correlated with % fibrosis (r =?0.87; p 

View details for DOI 10.1186/s40644-018-0172-6

View details for PubMedID 30409175

View details for PubMedCentralID PMC6225661