Mary A McLean1, Nicola L Ainsworth1,2, Anna M Brown1, Susan V Harden2, and John R Griffiths1
1CRUK Cambridge Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 2Oncology, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, United Kingdom
We investigated the effect of
prophylactic cranial irradiation (PCI: 25 Gy in 10 fractions) on brain MRI at
3T. Six patients with small cell lung cancer were scanned at 4-month intervals:
at diagnosis, following chemotherapy, and following PCI. Paired t-tests before
and after PCI in right frontal white matter showed increased ADC and decreased
FA and MTR following treatment. However, the parameters did not differ
significantly from the scan at diagnosis, and other brain regions showed no
significant changes on repeated-measures ANOVA. These observations are
consistent with previous reports of more marked changes following higher-dose
radiotherapy treatment.
