Extent of Resection represents the cornerstone of surgery in terms of improving the prognosis of the patient with High Grade Gliomas, but total removal of neoplastic tissue is prevented by the amount of infiltration that is undetectable either by traditional preoperative MRI techniques or by the naked eye during surgery. Several techniques are currently used to define margins in the surgical setting, but the literature available on them to date is mostly focused on the assessment of postoperative GTR (Gross Total Resection), which tends to underestimate neoplastic tissue infiltration.~The evaluation of the efficacy of these techniques in detecting tumour infiltration by comparing them with the histopathology response on intraoperative biopsies taken after the debulking phase of the neoplasm could overcome this sensitivity limitation.~The study therefore intends to develop an algorithm that allows to discern between tumour infiltration and healthy parenchyma by means of different margin-assessment techniques in order to maximise the extent of resection in patients with HGGs.
The present study aims to evaluate and compare with the histopathological analysis the various margin-assessment systems, including ultrasound, florescence, brightfield vision, new optical filters and microscope image post-processing systems, for the treatment of High Grade Gliomas (HGGs)