Quantitative Methods in Brain Tumor Imaging

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has an important role to play in the care of patients with brain injury or disease, but other forms of clinical imaging are also useful. For cancer patients, MRI is often used in initial diagnosis, treatment planning, and continued follow-up. Here, the many variations of MRI, from contrast-enhanced T1-weighted, diffusion-weighted, perfusion-weighted, magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and other data collection methods provide MRI with the ability to highlight many different physiologic and metabolic properties of cancer. Quantitative methods in brain imaging have the ability to guide physicians as they work with patients to make clinical decisions about their care. This chapter will focus on the use of MRI in the detection, diagnosing, staging, and therapy monitoring of brain tumors, but reference to other imaging methods in the brain is also noted.