Magnetic Resonance Imaging for Monitoring Irreversible Electroporation of Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the 6th most common neoplasm worldwidely and is 4th leading cause of cancer death in United States. It is estimated that there will be 30,640 new cases diagnosed and 21,670 deaths due to this disease in the United States in 2013. Irreversible electroporation (IRE) is a novel tumor ablation modality which involves applying external electrical field to induce cell death through increasing cell membrane permeability. Compared to conventional thermal ablation methods, IRE has demonstrated multiple potential benefits as a tumor ablation modality. However, further pre-clinical validation in liver tumor animal models is warranted prior to clinical translation for the treatment of HCC and intra-procedural imaging techniques will be critical to permit ‘patient-specific’ optimization of these IRE procedures. In this dissertation, a Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) monitoring method was developed to assess immediate response to IRE. Imaging characteristics after ablation were evaluated in normal liver ad tumor tissues. A MRI-based pre-procedural finite element method was developed to predict IRE ablation zone and applied in a liver tumor model. MRI-based ablation zone was measured and correlated with histology-confirmed ablation zone. Finally, diffusion-weighted MRI was performed before and after IRE and the corresponding apparent diffusion coefficient map was measured to investigate the cell membrane change due to electroporation.