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Scientific Oral Presentation

Head and Neck Surgery

Early Mri-derived Predictors of anti-pd-1 Efficacy in MOC1 Syngeneic Mice

Tuesday, October 20, 2026
9:27 AM - 9:33 AM PT
Location: West Exhibit Hall A, Learning Zone 3

    Presenting Author(s)

  • JN

    Jakkree Naruekon, MD

    Research Fellow
    NYU Langone Health
    Khon Kaen, Khon Kaen, Thailand

    • Senior Author(s)

  • Umamaheswar Duvvuri, MD, PhD

    Mendik Foundation Professor of Otolaryngology and Chair of the Department of Otolaryngology
    NYU Langone Health
    New York, NY, United States

    • Co-Author(s)

  • GK

    Gene Kim, PhD

    Professor of Biomedical Engineering in Radiology
    Weill Cornell Medicine, United States

  • TR

    Thomas Ruan, PhD

    Postdoctoral Associate in Radiology
    Weill Cornell Medicine, United States

  • FY

    Farhana Yesmin, PhD

    Molecular and Cellular biologist
    NYU Langone Health, United States

Disclosure(s):
Jakkree Naruekon, MD:

faculty for this accredited education activity has no relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.

Umamaheswar Duvvuri, MD, PhD:

faculty for this accredited education activity has no relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.

Introduction: There is a critical need for non-invasive biomarkers to predict immunotherapy response in head and neck cancer. We sought to determine whether MRI parameters could identify early tumor changes following anti-PD1 therapy in a MOC1 murine model.

Methods: MOC1 tumor-bearing mice received anti-PD1 therapy when tumor volume reached to 50-100 mm3 and underwent MRI on Day 0, 3, and 7 after treatment. Quantitative parameters included diffusivity, kurtosis, perfusion fraction, and OE-MRI signal from 1st, 2nd, and 3rd eho acquisition. Tumors were classified as responder, stable, and non-responders base on tumor volume outcome following pRECIST criteria.

Results: Anti-PD1 therapy significantly inhibited tumor growth, with the response group achieving a mean volume of 78.79 mm³ versus 445.82 mm³ in controls by Day 14. Functional MRI revealed distinct microstructural trajectories; responders maintained elevated diffusivity and kurtosis, consistent with cell lysis and preserved complexity, while non-responders exhibited a progressive decline in kurtosis. Vascular parameters also diverged, with non-responders showing higher perfusion fraction at Day 3 and elevated oxygen-enhancement signals by Day 7. Spearman analysis identified Tumor Kurtosis at Day 7 as the most robust predictor of therapeutic response (ρ = -0.79), followed by Diffusivity at Day 7. Notably, Perfusion Fraction at Day 3 emerged as a significant early indicator (ρ = 0.69). These findings demonstrate that multi-parametric MRI can stratify response prior to macroscopic tumor shrinkage.

Conclusions: In summary, this study establishes kurtosis as the most sensitive early biomarker for predicting anti-PD1 response in MOC1 syngeneic mouse tumor which reflects microstructural remodeling in responding tumor. The data indicates that changes in microstructural heterogeneity precede macroscopic tumor regression. These multiparametric MRI parameters provide a non-invasive framework for early immunotherapy assessment, allow for the rapid identification of non-responders and the optimize the precision immunotherapy regimen.