Michael Helle1, Susanne Rfer1,
Matthias van Osch2, David Gordon Norris3,4, Olav Jansen1,
Arya Nabavi5
1Institute for
Neuroradiology, Christian-Albrechts-Universitt, UK-SH, Kiel, Germany; 2C.J.
Gorter Center for High Field MRI, Department of Radiology, Leiden University
Medical Center, Leiden, Netherlands; 3Donders Institute for Brain,
Cognition & Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen,
Netherlands; 4Erwin L. Hahn Institute for Magnetic Resonance
Imaging, Essen, Germany; 5Clinic for Neurosurgery,
Christian-Albrechts-Universitt, UK-SH, Kiel, Germany
Certain tumors of the CNS, particularly large meningiomas, can present variable vascular architectures. Patients need to undergo intra-arterial digital subtraction angiography to reveal a reliable estimate of the feeding vasculature. This study demonstrates that superselective arterial spin labeling makes it possible to identify all tumor-supplying arteries and to define different compartments in a complete non-invasive way. This information can be crucial for surgeons as a basis for planning the approach, and reacting to intra-operative bleeding. The depiction of feeding arteries may also help to distinguish between intra- and extra-axial tumors since differentiation on conventional MR imaging alone can be difficult.