Abstract
Vascular-space-occupancy (VASO) MRI without contrast injection was explored for imaging cerebral blood volume (CBV) and tissue heterogeneity in gliomas (n = 10). VASO contrast complemented contrast-enhanced T1-weighted (GAD-T1w), FLAIR and T1 magnetization-prepared-rapid- gradient-echo (MPRAGE) images. High-grade gliomas showed a VASO-outlined hyperintense zone corresponding to long-T1 regions in MPRAGE and to nonenhancing regions in GAD-T1w images. FLAIR, MPRAGE, and VASO data were used to segment tumors into multiple zones of different T1. After removal of known resection areas using pre- and postsurgical MRI, the volume of overlap between the hyperintense VASO-zone and the long-T1 MPRAGE zone correlated with that of GAD-T1w enhancement (R 2 = 0.99) and tumor grade. Based on these correlations, this remaining long T1 overlap area was tentatively assigned to necrosis. In one promising case the collective T1-weighted approach accurately identified a low-grade glioma despite the presence of contrast enhancement in GAD-T1w images consequential to chemoradiation-associated treatment effect. The results suggest that this collective T1-weighted approach may provide useful information for regional assessment of heterogeneous tumors and for guiding treatment-related decisions in patients with gliomas.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 336-344 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Magnetic resonance in medicine |
Volume | 59 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Feb 2008 |
Keywords
- Cerebral blood volume
- FLAIR
- Gd-DTPA
- MPRAGE
- MRI
- Necrosis
- Treatment effect
- Tumor segmentation
- VASO
- White matter
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Radiology Nuclear Medicine and imaging