Oxygen-Challenge Blood Oxygen Level-Dependent Magnetic Resonance Imaging for Evaluation of Early Change of Hepatocellular Carcinoma to Chemoembolization: A Feasibility Study.

Rationale and Objectives To investigate the feasibility of oxygen-challenge blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at 3T for evaluating the early change of blood oxygenation before and after transcatheter arterial embolization (TACE) in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Materials and Methods Thirty HCC patients with cirrhosis (HCC group, n = 30) and 30 healthy volunteers (control group, n = 30) were included in this study. Patients in the HCC group underwent BOLD before and 1 month after TACE. Oxygen was administered via a mask. Differences between pre- and post-O2 T2* values were evaluated using a pairwise t-test. Analysis of variance was performed to assess the statistical differences in the T2* values measured in HCC group pre-TACE and post-TACE and in healthy volunteers. Results In the HCC group, the pre- and post-O2 T2* values of the cancerous area before TACE were 26.03 ± 3.30 and 26.84 ± 3.42 msec, respectively, and both decreased significantly to 8.67 ± 1.76 and 8.82 ± 1.80 msec, respectively, at 1 month after TACE (p Conclusion Oxygen-challenge BOLD MRI is feasible to assess post-TACE changes in HCC patients.