Conclusions
MPO-Gd MRI can distinguish enhancement patterns that reflect treatment-induced spatiotemporal changes of intratumoral and intracerebral inflammation from those indicating tumor and peritumoral edema. This technology improves the posttreatment diagnosis of gliomas and will increase our understanding of the role of inflammation in cancer therapy.
Methods
We carried out serial Gd-bis-5-HT-DTPA (MPO-Gd) MRI before and after treating rodent gliomas with different doses of oncolytic virus (OV) and analyzed animal survival. The imaging
Purpose
Inflammation occurs routinely when managing gliomas and is not easily distinguishable from tumor regrowth by current MRI
Results
Elevated MPO activity was observed by MRI inside the tumor and in the peritumoral cerebrum at day 1 post-OV injection, which corresponded with activation/infiltration of myeloid cells inhibiting OV intratumoral persistence. MPO activity decreased, whereas tumor size increased, as the virus and the immune cells were cleared (days 1-7 post-OV injection). A 10-fold increase in viral dose temporally decreased tumor size, but augmented MPO activity, thus preventing extension of viral intratumoral persistence. Conclusions: MPO-Gd MRI can distinguish enhancement patterns that reflect treatment-induced spatiotemporal changes of intratumoral and intracerebral inflammation from those indicating tumor and peritumoral edema. This technology improves the posttreatment diagnosis of gliomas and will increase our understanding of the role of inflammation in cancer therapy.