ABSTRACT

To determine whether there are statistically differences in cerebral blood volume (CBV) of brain tumors of different histopathological types including primary malignant lesions. To deter-mine whether these measurements relate to tumor grade.

Our study included 25 patients (20 male, 5 female) who have primary intracranial tumors. MRI was performed in a 1.5 T, superconductive magnet with standart head coils. Conventional MRI and dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI were both performed at same time on all patients. rCBV ratios were calculated in and around the lesions detected while an area of the same pixel number and the opposite side of the pathologic area was pointed as a standart refer-ence in the transaxial plane. Standart reference area chosen for a comparison had normal signal characteristics in the T1W and T2W images.

Sixteen of all tumors were high-grade glial tumors (HGGT), and nine were low- grade glial tumors (LGGT). Statistically meaningful differences were detected between HGGT and LGGT (p<0.001).

Perfusion MRI can be used along with conventional MRI for a high accuracy grading of primary brain tumors.

Keywords: Brain neoplasms; magnetic resonance imaging; perfusion weighted imaging