Blood oxygenation level-dependent MRI of cerebral gliomas during breath holding

✍ Scribed by Yuan-Yu Hsu; Chen-Nen Chang; Shih-Ming Jung; Kun-Eng Lim; Ju-Chuan Huang; Shin-Yi Fang; Ho-Ling Liu

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2004
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 484 KB
• Volume: 19
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1053-1807
• DOI: 10.1002/jmri.10447

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Purpose

To assess the cerebrovascular responses to short breath holding of cerebral gliomas using blood oxygenation level‐dependent (BOLD) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Materials and Methods

Six patients with a low‐grade glioma and one patient with a high‐grade glioma were studied using T2*‐weighted echo planar imaging (EPI) during repeated periods of 15‐second or 20‐second breath‐holding. Tumor vascularity was evaluated using dynamic susceptibility contrast perfusion MRI.

Results

Increases in BOLD signal intensity during repeated breath‐holding were consistently identified in patients' normal appearing gray matter, comparable with those in healthy adults. Absence of significant BOLD signal enhancement was noted both in low‐grade and high‐grade gliomas, which is either due to overwhelming hypoxia in a tumor, inadequacy or absence of hypercapnia‐induced vasodilatation of tumor vessels, or both. Breath‐hold regulated decreases in BOLD signals occurred only in the high‐grade glioma, which is most likely due to the hypercapnia‐induced steal effect that redistributes blood flow from tumor regions with unresponsive neovasculature to surrounding normal tissue.

Conclusion

BOLD MRI during short breath holding can disclose differential cerebrovascular response between normal tissue and cerebral glioma. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2004;19:160–167. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.