Phase Contrast computed tomography to characterize rat brain tumors after ultrasound-enhanced chemo-radiotherapy

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common and aggressive primary brain tumour. Due to the chemoresistance and highly infiltrative growth of GBM, current treatments can only slow the development of the disease. The main limit to the effectiveness of chemotherapies in the brain is their restricted access due to the presence of the blood brain barrier (BBB), which limits the passage of most drugs. Recently, focused ultrasound (FUS) in combination with microbubbles, has attracted attention as a non-invasive means of temporarily opening the BBB (1). X-ray Phase Contrast Computed Tomography (XPCT) is a powerful imaging technique for post mortem radiation treatment evaluation on brain samples. In this study, we propose to investigate the potential of XPCT to measure the impact of blood-brain barrier opening by US and chemoradiotherapy treatments on post-mortem samples from F98 glioma-bearing rats, in particular on the micro vessels architecture.