Imaging of Hypoxic Tumor: Correlation between Diffusion-weighted MR Imaging and 18F-fluoroazomycin Arabinoside Positron Emission Tomography in Head and Neck Carcinoma

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We investigated the usefulness of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) for detecting changes in the structure of hypoxic cells by evaluating the correlation between 18F-fluoroazomycin arabinoside (FAZA) positron emission tomography activity and DWI parameters in head and neck carcinoma. The diffusion coefficient corresponding to the slow compartment of a two-compartment model had a significant positive correlation with FAZA activity (ρ = 0.58, P = 0.016), whereas the diffusional kurtosis from diffusion kurtosis imaging had a significant negative correlation (ρ = −0.62, P = 0.008), which suggests that those DWI parameters might be useful as indicators for changes in cell structure.