Potential of diffusion imaging in brain tumors: a review.

Diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a method for quantifying the microscopic random motion of water molecules in tissues. Diffusion imaging provides indirect structural information of a kind not available on basic MRI sequences of many pathological conditions. Lately, especially brain tumors have been under active investigation, with numerous papers already published, and their number continues to increase. This review summarizes the heterogeneous and complex research data on diffusion imaging of brain tumors.