Relaxation Along a Fictitious Field, continuous wave T1rho, adiabatic T1rho and adiabatic T2rho imaging of human gliomas at 3T: A feasibility study

PLoS One. 2024 Apr 1;19(4):e0296958. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0296958. eCollection 2024.

Abstract

In pre-clinical models of brain gliomas, Relaxation Along a Fictitious Field in second rotating frame (TRAFF2), continues wave T1rho (T1ρcw), adiabatic T1rho (T1ρadiab), and adiabatic T2rho (T2ρadiab) relaxation time mappings have demonstrated potential to non-invasively characterize brain gliomas. Our aim was to evaluate the feasibility and potential of 4 different spin lock methods at 3T to characterize primary brain glioma. 22 patients (26-72 years) with suspected primary glioma. T1ρcw was performed using pulse peak amplitude of 500Hz and pulse train durations of 40 and 80 ms while the corresponding values for T1ρadiab, T2ρadiab, TRAFF2 were 500/500/500Hz and 48 and 96, 64 and 112, 45 and 90 ms, respectively. The parametric maps were calculated using a monoexponential model. Molecular profiles were evaluated from tissue specimens obtained during the resection. The lesion regions-of-interest were segmented from high intensity FLAIR using automatic segmentation with manual refinement. Statistical descriptors from the voxel intensity values inside each lesion and radiomic features (Pyrad MRC package) were calculated. From extracted radiomics, mRMRe R package version 2.1.0 was used to select 3 features in each modality for statistical comparisons. Of the 22 patients, 10 were found to have IDH-mutant gliomas and of those 5 patients had 1p/19q codeletion group comparisons. Following correction for effects of age and gender, at least one statistical descriptor was able to differentiate between IDH and 1p/19q codeletion status for all the parametric maps. In the radiomic analysis, corner-edge detector features with Harris-Stephens filtered signal showed significant group differences in IDH and 1p/19q codeletion groups. Spin lock imaging at 3T of human glioma was feasible and various qualitative parameters derived from the parametric maps were found to have potential to differentiate IDH and 1p19q codeletion status. Future larger prospective clinical trials are warranted to evaluate these methods further.

MeSH terms

  • Brain Neoplasms* / diagnostic imaging
  • Brain Neoplasms* / pathology
  • Chromosome Aberrations
  • Chromosomes, Human, Pair 1
  • Chromosomes, Human, Pair 19
  • Feasibility Studies
  • Glioma* / diagnostic imaging
  • Glioma* / pathology
  • Humans
  • Isocitrate Dehydrogenase / genetics
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging / methods
  • Mutation
  • Prospective Studies

Substances

  • Isocitrate Dehydrogenase

Grants and funding

The authors wish to acknowledge CSC – IT Center for Science, Finland, for computational resources used in creation of the parameter maps in this study. This study was financially supported by grants from Instrumentarium Research Foundation, Sigrid Jusélius Foundation, Turku University Hospital, TYKS-SAPA research fund, Finnish Cancer Society, Finnish Cultural Foundation, and Orion Research Foundation. HM was supported by the Cultural Foundation of Finland, Orion Pharma Research Fellowship, and Academy of Finland (#26080983). TL was supported by Academy of Finland #340761. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.