Rotating Frame Relaxation and Diffusion Weighted Imaging of Human Gliomas

Grading of gliomas is of significant clinical importance since the prognosis as well as the treatment of choice are distinct in low-grade and high-grade gliomas. With standard MRI modalities, however, a reliable distinction is often impossible. Moreover, the gold standard for glioma grading by histopathology may also have limitations due to unrepresentative tumor samples. Therefore, more advanced MRI techniques are urgently needed that would have higher sensitivity and specificity in the definition of tumor type, grade and extent.

Assessment of radiologic response for high-grade gliomas utilizes the updated RANO criteria 12 weeks after completion of chemoradiotherapy. However, there is an urgent need to identify nonresponding patients earlier, preferentially midtreatment in order to consider alternative treatment strategies. Imaging biomarkers, such as diffusion weighted MR imaging (DWI), have provided promising results in assessing early treatment response. Furthermore, a serum biomarker with diagnostic value could improve tumor follow-up and clinical management of gliomas.

The aim of our study is to develop novel imaging protocols suitable for the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of glioma using advanced MRI techniques such as rotating frame imaging, novel DWI acquisition and post-processing methods We also study the correlation between advanced MRI parameters and histopathology of the tumor specimen. In addition, early treatment response is assessed with advanced MRI parameters at 3 week and 10 week after initiation of radiotherapy. Finally, our objective is to study the association between serum biomarkers and corresponding MRI with potential tumor progression.