Monitoring treatment efficacy is a large area of cancer research as it can increase the effectiveness of therapy regimens. Diffusion weighted Magnetic Resonance imaging (DWI), allows assessment of tissue microstructure without exogenous contrast agents. In this thesis, two different DWI techniques were used to acquire data from acute myeloid leukemia cells undergoing apoptosis, and data was fitted to an analytical model of re- stricted diffusion. Results indicated a decrease in average restriction size from 6.4 to 2.7μm, and an increase in the restricted diffusion coefficient from 0.17 to 0.82μm^2/ms in untreated versus treated cells. The free diffusion coefficient was constant indicating changes in restrictions, rather than any intrinsic changes in the intra-cellular or extra- cellular fluid. This combination of techniques has the potential for use in preclinical and clinical settings as it demonstrates that apoptotic changes may be measured consistently.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/35606 |
| Date | 11 July 2013 |
| Creators | Fichtner, Nicole Damara |
| Contributors | Stanisz, Greg |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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