Clinical Challenge

Stereotactic Ablative Radiation Therapy (SABR) which delivers very high doses in extremely hypo-fractionated radiation regimens is becoming established for the treatment of a variety of abdominal malignancies. SABR efficacy is believed to be significantly dependent on the patient-specific dynamic state of the tortuous and irregular tumor vasculature and its response to ablative doses. A fundamental clinical challenge in exploring this dependency for clinical improvements of SABR efficacy is the lack of means for frequent, quantifiable, inexpensive imaging of tumor vasculature in SABR setting.  

We hypothesize that this obstacle can be overcome by 3D Dynamic Contrast Enhanced Ultrasound (3D DCE-US) enabled by novel 2D matrix array transducer technology that has not been investigated in clinical cancer research. Hence our overall objective is to explore the potential of 3D DCE-US by conducting a pilot trial of 3D DCE-US imaging during SABR simulation and treatment to evaluate the feasibility of 3D-DCE-US in this setting and the existence of associations between changes in DCE-US derived imaging measures and SABR.

Research topics

• Feasibility of 3D contrast enhanced ultrasound perfusion imaging in SABR patients
• Assessing if early tumor perfusion changes can be used as a biomarker for radiation treatment response

_{Recent Publications & Presentations}

• _{El Kaffas A, Hoogi A, Zhou J, Durot I, Wang H, Rosenberg J, Tseng A, Sagreiya H, Akhbardeh A, Rubin D, Kamaya A, Hristov D, and Willmann J. Spatial Characterization of Tumor Perfusion Properties from 3D DCE-US Perfusion Maps are Early Predictors of Cancer Treatment Response. Sci Rep. 2020 April.}
• _{Zhou J, Wang H, Zhang H, Lutz AM, Tian L, Hristov D, Willmann JK. VEGFR2-targeted three-dimensional ultrasound imaging can predict responses to anti-angiogenic therapy in preclinical models of colon cancer. Cancer Res. 2016 July.}
• _{Wang H, Hristov D, Qin J, Tian L, Willmann JK. Three-dimensional Dynamic Contrast-enhanced US Imaging for Early antiangiogenic Treatment Assessment in a Mouse Colon Cancer Model. Radiology. 2015 Nov.}
• _{Wang H, Kaneko OF, Tian L, Hristov D, Willmann JK. Three-Dimensional Ultrasound Molecular Imaging of Angiogenesis in Colon Cancer Using a Clinical Matrix Array Ultrasound Transducer. Invest Radiol. 2015 Jan 8.}