View article

Hypoxia is a common feature of most solid tumors, reflecting an imbalance of oxygen delivery and consumption. Tumor hypoxia is an indicator of a treatment resistance and overall poor prognosis in head and neck cancer. Change in tissue oxygen concentration level (TOLD) induced by breathing pure oxygen produces proportional change in tissue T1 relaxivity. The proposed technique, a motion insensitive 3D TOLD MRI using 3D VFA T1 Stack of Star sampling, has obvious advantages over conventional 3D VFA technique for reliable and accurate T1 measurements and a great potential for the assessment of tumor hypoxia in HNC patients.