Mar. 26, 2008 A special type of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
can depict changes in blood volume in the brain that often
precede cancerous transformation of brain tumors, according to a
new study. "We found that increases in blood volume within the
tumor measured noninvasively by perfusion MRI precede other
markers of malignant transformation by a year or more," said
study co-author Adam Waldman, Ph.D., M.R.C.P., F.R.C.R.,
consultant neuroradiologist and imaging research director at
Imperial College NHS Trust and honorary senior lecturer at
Imperial College and University College, London. Low-grade
gliomas are primary brain tumors that grow slowly over several
years. Eventually, almost all low-grade gliomas progress to
high-grade gliomas, which carry a poor prognosis. "Patients with
low-grade gliomas are often young and may remain clinically well
for many years but, at an unpredictable time their tumor will
transform to an aggressively high-grade glioma," Dr. Waldman
said. For the study, the researchers pe