Kyung K. Peck1, Tania Sierra2, Zhigang Zhigang1, Raymond Baser1, Rob Young1
1Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, USA; 2Mount Sinai Medical School, New York
DTI is proving to be useful in a range of applications, such as planning brain tumor surgery, glioma grading and image-modulated radiation therapy. The peritumoral region is an important area that may harbor infiltrating tumor cells in gliomas. The peritumoral region is also susceptible to mechanical and ischemic injury during surgery. DTI demonstrates changes in the peritumoral region immediately after surgery. The exact etiology of these changes remains uncertain. These changes occur in both glioma and nonglioma patients, although only the peritumoral region of gliomas reflects both edema and infiltrating tumor cells.