Tumor Hypoxia: Long Ignored but Now Detectable and Potentially Actionable

Oxygen-enhanced MRI was successfully applied to 24 patients with human papillomavirus-associated oropharyngeal cancer. This prospective trial rigorously evaluated reproducibility and changes with respect to tumor radiation. Analyses compared hypoxic volumes and hypoxic fractions. It represents important progress in developing a practical approach to assessing tumor hypoxia in patients noninvasively. See related article by Dubec et al., p. 5620.