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

We investigated the usefulness of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) for detecting changes in the structure of hypoxic cells by evaluating the correlation between F-18-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 (rho = 0.58, P = 0.016), whereas the diffusional kurtosis from diffusion kurtosis imaging had a significant negative correlation (rho = -0.62, P = 0.008), which suggests that those DWI parameters might be useful as indicators for changes in cell structure.