Program Information

Morphometry Based Measurements of the Structural Response to Whole Brain Radiation

D Fuentes*, R Castillo , E Castillo , T Guerrero , UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX

Presentations

SU-E-QI-12 Sunday 3:00PM - 6:00PM Room: Exhibit Hall

Purpose: Although state of the art radiation therapy techniques for treating intracranial malignancies have eliminated acute brain injury, cognitive impairment occurs in 50-90% of patients who survive >6mo post irradiation. Quantitative characterization of therapy response is needed to facilitate therapeutic strategies to minimize radiation induced cognitive impairment [1]. Deformation based morphometry techniques [2, 3] are presented as a quantitative imaging biomarker of therapy response in patients receiving whole brain radiation for treating medulloblastoma.

Methods: Post-irradiation magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data sets were retrospectively analyzed in N=15 patients, >60 MR image datasets. As seen in Fig 1(a), volume changes at multiple time points post-irradiation were quantitatively measured in the cerebrum and ventricles with respect to pre-irradiation MRI. A high resolution image Template, was registered to the pre-irradiation MRI of each patient to create a brain atlas for the cerebrum, cerebellum, and ventricles. Skull stripped images for each patient were registered to the initial pre-treatment scan. Average volume changes in the labeled regions were measured using the determinant of the displacement field Jacobian.

Results: Longitudinal measurements, Fig 1(b-c), show a negative correlation p=.06, of the cerebral volume change with the time interval from irradiation. A corresponding positive correlation, p=.01, between ventricular volume change and time interval from irradiation is seen. One sample t-test for correlations were computed using a Spearman method. An average decrease in cerebral volume, p=.08, and increase in ventricular volume, p<.001, was observed. The radiation dose was seen directly proportional to the induced volume changes in the cerebrum, r=-.44, p<.001, Fig 1(d).

Conclusion: Results indicate that morphometric monitoring of brain tissue volume changes may potentially be used to quantitatively assess toxicity and response to radiation and may provide insight in developing new therapeutic approaches and monitoring efficacy.

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