Abnormal vessel tortuosity as a marker of treatment response of malignant gliomas: preliminary report.
Despite multiple advances in medical imaging, noninvasive monitoring of therapeutic efficacy for malignant gliomas remains problematic. An underutilized observation is that malignancy induces characteristic abnormalities of vessel shape. These characteristic shape abnormalities affect both capillaries and much larger vessels in the tumor vicinity, involve larger vessels prior to sprout formation, and are generally not present in hypervascular benign tumors. Vessel shape abnormalities associated with malignancy thus may appear independently of increase in vessel density. We hypothesize that an automated, computerized analysis of vessel shape as defined from high-resolution MRA can provide valuable information about tumor activity during the treatment of malignant gliomas. This report describes vessel shape properties in 10 malignant gliomas prior to treatment, in 2 patients in remission during treatment, and in 2 patients with recurrent disease. One subject was scanned multiple times. The method involves an automated, statistical analysis of vessel shape within a region of interest for each tumor, normalized by the values obtained from the vessels within the same region of interest of 34 healthy subjects. Results indicate that untreated tumors display statistically significant vessel tortuosity abnormalities. These abnormalities involve vessels not only within the tumor margins as defined from MR but also vessels in the surrounding tissue. The abnormalities resolve during effective treatment and recur with tumor recurrence. We conclude that vessel shape analysis could provide an important means of assessing tumor activity.
Bullitt
Elizabeth
E
Department of Surgery, University of North Carolina, 349 Wing C, CB #7062, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA. bullitt@med.unc.edu
Ewend
Matthew G
MG
Aylward
Stephen
S
Lin
Weili
W
Gerig
Guido
G
Joshi
Sarang
S
Jung
Inkyung
I
Muller
Keith
K
Smith
J Keith
JK
D002560:Cerebrovascular Circulation; D005910:Glioma / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013997:Time Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome