• Yuan-Yu Hsu, Chen-Nen Chang, Shih-Ming Jung, Kun-Eng Lim, Ju-Chuan Huang, Shin-Yi Fang, and Ho-Ling Liu.
• Department of Radiology, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taoyuan, Taiwan.
• J Magn Reson Imaging. 2004 Feb 1; 19 (2): 160-7.

PurposeTo assess the cerebrovascular responses to short breath holding of cerebral gliomas using blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).Materials And MethodsSix patients with a low-grade glioma and one patient with a high-grade glioma were studied using T2*-weighted echo planar imaging (EPI) during repeated periods of 15-second or 20-second breath-holding. Tumor vascularity was evaluated using dynamic susceptibility contrast perfusion MRI.ResultsIncreases in BOLD signal intensity during repeated breath-holding were consistently identified in patients' normal appearing gray matter, comparable with those in healthy adults. Absence of significant BOLD signal enhancement was noted both in low-grade and high-grade gliomas, which is either due to overwhelming hypoxia in a tumor, inadequacy or absence of hypercapnia-induced vasodilatation of tumor vessels, or both. Breath-hold regulated decreases in BOLD signals occurred only in the high-grade glioma, which is most likely due to the hypercapnia-induced steal effect that redistributes blood flow from tumor regions with unresponsive neovasculature to surrounding normal tissue.ConclusionBOLD MRI during short breath holding can disclose differential cerebrovascular response between normal tissue and cerebral glioma.Copyright 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

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