AJR. American journal of roentgenology
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AJR Am J Roentgenol · Mar 1994
MR imaging of high-grade cerebral gliomas: value of diffusion-weighted echoplanar pulse sequences.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of diffusion-weighted echoplanar MR imaging in the examination of high-grade brain gliomas compared with that of conventional spin-echo (SE) or fast spin-echo (FSE) MR imaging. We hypothesize that diffusion-weighted MR imaging may enable us to differentiate various tumor components on the basis of differences in the diffusion of water. ⋯ Diffusion-weighted echoplanar MR imaging is a useful technique for examining high-grade cerebral gliomas. It enabled us to differentiate various components of the tumor (e.g., enhancing, nonenhancing, cystic, or necrotic) and to distinguish areas of predominantly nonenhancing tumor from areas of predominantly peritumoral edema when the abnormality was located in the white matter aligned in the direction of the diffusion-weighted gradient. Diffusion-weighted echoplanar MR imaging appears to be a powerful tool in the characterization of brain neoplasms.