RADIATION THERAPY 51
3.1. Radiation Therapy
3.1.1. Abstract
Radiotherapy studies in mice using perfluoro-15-crown-5-ether showed a decrease in
p
O
2
following a single large dose of radiation. In conjunction with spectroscopic data,Inversion-Recovery Echo-Planar-Imaging data were collected at 1-3 hours, 10-13 hours,and 19-26 hours post irradiation, and
T
1
-maps generated in order to display localizedchanges in
p
O
2
. The calculated
T
1
-maps were then weighted by their respective M
0
-mapsto find the weighted average of the
T
1
-maps, and an equivalent
p
O
2
of the tumor was thencalculated from the weighted average. Untreated control animals that were subjected tothe same time course showed no evidence of
p
O
2
decline, while the tumors irradiatedwith a single dose of 6 MeV electrons showed a decline in
p
O
2
by approximately 9 torralmost immediately after irradiation. The calculation of
p
O
2
using the weighted averageof the
T
1
-maps was not only highly correlated to the spectroscopic measurements, it wasapproximately equivalent to the spectroscopic measurements. It is speculated that thedecrease in the tissue oxygenation following radiation therapy is due to vascular damagecaused by such a high dose of radiation, or edema within the interstitium of the tumor.Edema can cause the interstitial pressure to increase, resulting in vascular collapse. Thisin turn would lead to decreased perfusion and thus decreased oxygen delivery.
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