Molecular MR Imaging for Immunosurveillance and Therapeutic Monitoring of Pancreatic Cancer during Neoantigen Vaccine Therapy

Motivation: The therapeutic landscape for pancreatic cancer is particularly bleak, there is no truly curative neoadjuvant therapy available in the clinic. Goal(s): Unfortunately, available imaging does not reliably evaluate pancreatic tumor response to neoadjuvant treatment and underrepresents the extent of the tumor, which leads to suboptimal clinical management. Therefore, we developed a non-invasive MR method for evaluation of treatment response. Approach: We utilized a molecular MR-based T1w acquisition using a lymphokine targeting contrast agent during novel vaccine therapy. Results: When tumors responded to therapy, we found significant signal changes that were qualitatively and quantitatively assessed to determine outcomes later. Impact: By using MR molecular imaging in preclinical PDAC models we can better evaluate novel therapeutic agents and provide more accurate and accessible precision care tools for response prediction.