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Influence of brain tumors on the MR spectra of healthy brain tissue
Author(s) -
Busch M.,
Liebenrodt K.,
Gottfried S.,
Weiland E.,
Vollmann W.,
Mateiescu S.,
Winter S.,
Lange S.,
Sahinbas H.,
Baier J.,
van Leeuwen P.,
Grönemeyer D.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
magnetic resonance in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.696
H-Index - 225
eISSN - 1522-2594
pISSN - 0740-3194
DOI - 10.1002/mrm.22612
Subject(s) - confounding , white matter , neurochemical , voxel , metabolite , brain tumor , brain tissue , medicine , homogeneous , receiver operating characteristic , nuclear magnetic resonance , pathology , nuclear medicine , magnetic resonance imaging , radiology , mathematics , physics , combinatorics
The neurochemical environment of nontumorous white matter tissue was investigated in 135 single voxel spectra of “healthy” white matter regions of 43 tumor patients and 129 spectra of 52 healthy subjects. Spectra were acquired with short TE and TR values. With the data of tumor patients, it was examined whether differences were caused by the tumor itself or aggressive tumor therapies as confounding factors. Comparing the spectra of both classes, an excellent differentiation was possible based on the metabolite peak of N ‐acetylaspartate ( P ≈ 0) and myoinositol ( P < 0.03). The area under curve of the receiver operating characteristic was calculated as 0.86 and 0.62, respectively. With linear discriminant analysis using combinations of integrals, a prediction was possible, whether a spectrum belonged to the patient or the healthy subject class with an overall accuracy above 80%. The confounding factors could be ruled out as source of the differences. The results show strong evidence for an influence of malignant growth on the biochemical environment of nontumorous white matter tissue. Because of the T 1 weighting, the measured differences between both classes were most likely concentration changes interfered by T 1 effects. The underlying processes will be subject of future studies. Magn Reson Med, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.