Kurzbeschreibung
Glioma, one of the most common intracranial tumors, account for 81% of all malig- nant brain tumors. Although occuring rarely, they are often fatal.
In this work, an analysis pipeline was implemented in modular form to calculate quantitative maps of multiple physical parameters, including proton density P D, the transverse relaxation time T2, and the longitudinal and effective transverse relax- ation rates R1 and R2∗, respectively, from multiple MR images with different contrast weightings. The pipeline was implemented in MATLAB, partially utilizing existing toolboxes and frameworks. The pipeline was validated with data exported from the MR scanner directly and from the Picture Archiving and Communication Sys- tem (PACS). Quantitative parameter maps of five healthy subjects were evaluated with different configuration settings and were validated by comparing the estimated parameter maps with values reported in literature. Lastly, the pipeline was used to analyse the quantitative values in eight postoperative glioma patients in five volumes of interest (VOI): The oedema surrounding the resected glioma, and the affected and non-affected hemisphere in both gray and white matter.
The results indicated a trend, that glioma also affect normal-appearing tissue on a global scale, because we observed a change of the physical parameters. However, the patient cohort was too small to draw conclusions. R1 values in glioma patients in both gray and white matter could clearly be separated into two groups. These dif- ferences in R1 values could resemble the progression of disease or different types of glioma. Further research is necessary to consolidate this assumption.