Metabolic Imaging of malignant gliomas during immunotherapeutic intervention using chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) MRI at 9.4T

CDNP-R848, an experimental immunotherapeutic TLR7/8 agonist, showed high treatment efficacy with a significant tumor volume reduction and led to a re-normalization of the metabolic properties (MTRex Amide, MTRex Amine and MTRex NOE) of the tumor in relation to the healthy brain, with distinct differences to vehicle treatment. The clinical relevance of CEST imaging appears to be localizing active tumor areas and a better understanding of tumor heterogeneity. In the future, we aim to better characterize the origin of the CEST contrast by correlated histological and spatial metabolic analysis.