Characterising brain tumours using a fast multiparametric MRI protocol
21st September 2021
Ricardo Loução, Ana-Maria Oros-Peusquens, Karl-Josef Langen, Hugo Alexandre Ferreira and N. Jon Shah
The characteristic changes in the brain environment caused by brain tumours can be assessed using several MRI measurable parameters. However, as the disease progresses, tumour tissue generally becomes increasingly heterogeneous as different mutations in the cells result in regions of distinct underlying microstructure.
As no single MRI contrast is able to categorically characterise the whole range of differentiation, it is difficult to accurately grade the tumour using standard MRI techniques alone. Consequently, a multiparametric approach to tumour segmentation and characterisation is required.
This pilot study aimed to assess the feasibility of adding several diffusion parameters for the characterisation of tumours within a short measurement time of around four minutes. The selected parameters were: IVIM, apparent diffusivity, and non-Gaussian diffusion characterised by apparent kurtosis. In vivo validation was performed by contrasting the parameter values to similar quantities derived from established protocols.
The results show that the protocol is able to provide four parameters relevant to tumour environment (f and f.D*, as blood volume and flow surrogates, and apparent diffusivity and kurtosis, as microstructural probes) and can contribute to defining the unique quantitative multiparametric signature of individual brain tumours.
Moreover, this can be achieved within a clinically relevant acquisition time, meaning that the protocol is not only particularly relevant for diagnosis, staging and treatment planning in standard clinical brain tumour imaging; it is also fast enough for use in more time-stringent applications, such as sub-acute stroke.
The team will now continue to develop the protocol and its applications in terms of adding more parameters and finding a way to represent the multiparametric information as a ‘tumour signature’.
Origional publication
A Fast Protocol for Multiparametric Characterisation of Diffusion in the Brain and Brain Tumours