The assessment of immature microvascular density in brain gliomas with dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging

Abstract Purpose This study was designed to quantitatively evaluate the immature microvascular density (MVD) of brain gliomas using the volume transfer constant ( K trans ) and volume of extravascular extracellular space per unit volume of tissue ( V e ) from dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) noninvasively. Materials and methods Fifty-seven patients (35 males, 22 females; age range, 14–70, mean age 46 ± 12 years old) with brain glioma were included in this study. The maximal values of K trans and V e of all patients with brain glioma (grade II 24, III 7 and IV 26) were obtained. The CD105-microvascular density (CD105-MVD) of each tumor was measured in surgical specimen. The differences of K trans , V e and CD105-MVD between the different grades of gliomas were analyzed using the Mann–Whitney U -test. The Pearman correlation coefficient was determined between K trans , V e and CD105-MVD. A P -value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results The differences in K trans , V e and CD105-MVD were statistically significant between low-grade glioma (LGG) and high-grade glioma (HGG) ( P  = 0.001, P P K trans , V e and CD105-MVD of grade II were significantly lower than those of grade III and IV. K trans and V e were positively correlated with CD105-MVD in HGG ( P P Conclusions Our results suggest DCE-MRI plays an important part in noninvasively evaluating the immature MVD of brain gliomas.