Energetics and Perfusion in Tumors

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Tumor models are used to study oxygenation, energetics and profusion in tumors during growth and treatment. Oxygenation is of particular importance as it relates to the success of radiation therapy and to the metastatic potential of tumors.

31P and 1H are used to study tumor energetics while oxygenation is studied with microelectrodes, EPR oximetry and florescence methods. [This work is in collaboration with Dr. Julia O'Hara and Professor Harold Schwartz.]

We are interested in how tumors regulate their metabolism and how we can use that information to target them for diagnosis and therapy. Specifically, we study the relationship between energetics and oxygenation in tumors. This is important as oxygenation is one of the main variables in the success of radiation therapy and in some chemotherapy's (especially in breast tumors). If we can correlate our non-invasive measurements of energetics using NMR with oxygen tension, then we may provide the diagnostician with additional information about tumors for use in determining therapy.

We collaborate with the electron paramagnetic resonance laboratory to measure oxygen tension. Our NMR measurements include diffusion imaging, Gd-DTPA dynamic T1 imaging, functional BOLD imaging and spectroscopy of 31P. The latter provides information on tissue energetics.