Martina Campanella1,
Tamara Ius2, Miran Skrap2, Luciano Fadiga1,
3
1RBCS,
Italian Institute of Technology, Genova, Italy; 2Department of
Neurosurgery, Az. Ospedaliero-Universitaria Santa Maria della Misericordia,
Udine, Italy; 3Section of Human Physiology, University of Ferrara,
Ferrara, Italy
Structural Magnetic Resonance(MRI) technique does not provide exhaustive information about the integrity of the surrounding/embedded white matter(WM). In this study we used Diffusion-Weighted MRI tractography to explore tumor-induced alterations of WM architecture without any a priori knowledge about the fiber paths under consideration. We analyzed by deterministic multi-fiber tractography 16 cases of histologically classified brain tumors. Tractography results showed different degrees of severity in WM involvement, which strongly correlated with the histopathological features of the lesion, suggesting the application of the proposed method as a diagnostic tool in those critical cases where the lesion does not involve major/known WM paths.