Ellen Ackerstaff1,
Natalia Kruchevsky1, Radka Stoyanova2, Sean D. Carlin1,
Nerissa Viola-Villegas1, Kuntalkumar Sevak1, Jason S.
Lewis1, Jason A. Koutcher1
1Memorial
Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, United States; 2Miller
School of Medicine University of Miami, Miami, FL, United States
Tumor hypoxia and pH have been related to tumor aggressiveness, treatment response, and outcome. Here, we evaluated tumoral pH, metabolism, and vascularity in human prostate cancer models using 1H-decoupled 31P MR spectroscopy and dynamic contrast-enhanced MR imaging (DCE-MRI). Tumoral, extracellular pH (pHe) was measured using 3-aminopropylphosphonate (3-APP), while spatial heterogeneity of tumor hypoxia was evaluated from DCE-MRI data using a novel pattern recognition approach. In tumors without extensive necrosis, pHe appears to be only slightly acidic and tied to the extent of tumoral hypoxia, as determined from vascularity.