Application of Arterial Spin Labeling(ASL) Technique in the Pre Operative Evaluation of Brain Tumors

Objective To explore the potential clinical application of arterial spin labeling(ASL) technique in the pre operative evaluation of brain tumors comparing with DSC MR imaging.Methods Forty one cases of brain tumors,including 8 high grade gliomas,16 low grade gliomas,7 metastases,and 10 meningiomas,performed flow-sensitive alternating inversion recovery(FAIR) and dynamic susceptibility contrast-enhanced(DSC) at a clinical 3.0 T MR imaging unit.All the cases were verified histologically.The primitive data were sent to ADW 4.3 workstation for post-processing.The mean rCBFmax ratio of tumor solid region,1 cm peri tumor region and 2 cm peri tumor region ere obtained.The mean rCBFmax ratio of ASL and DSC were compared.Linear Regression analysis was performed to detect the correlation between the two maximal rCBF ratios obtained by DSC and ASL.Results In tumor solid region,the mean rCBFmax ratio obtained by DSC and ASL had statistically significant difference(P0.05) between low grade gliomas and the other three groups of tumors.In 1 cm peri tumor region,the mean rCBFmax ratio obtained by DSC had statistically significant difference(P0.05) between high grade gliomas and the other three groups,but the mean rCBFmax ratio obtained by ASL had no significant difference(P0.05).The mean rCBFmax ratio obtained by DSC and ASL had statistically significant differences(P0.05) between the solid region and peri tumor regions.The mean rCBFmax ratios obtained by DSC and ASL had significant correlation in tumor solid region,correlation coefficient r=0.907.Conclusion ASL is a kind of MR perfusion imaging method to evaluate the hemodynamic information of brain tumors without injection of contrast medium.It can be a suitable candidate as a conventional sequence for the pre-operative assessment of brain tumors.