Accuracy for predicting adhesion between meningioma and the brain by using brain surface motion imaging: comparison between single and double acquisition methods.

Introduction: The presence of adhesions between the brain and the meningioma is an important factor that determines the success of total surgical removal. Brain surface motion imaging enables assessment of the dynamics of brain surface motion. A subtraction image of pulse-gated heavily T2-weighted images in different phases of the cardiac cycle provides a stripe pattern on the surface of the pulsating brain. Thus, the lack of a stripe pattern on the surface of extraaxial tumor indicates the presence of tumor-brain adhesion. The purpose of the present experiment was to evaluate the accuracy of predicting tumor-brain adhesion using the original double acquisition method and the improved single acquisition method.

Methods: The subjects were 67 meningioma cases patients who were surgically treated after brain surface motion imaging. Thirty-three cases were evaluated using the double acquisition method and 34 cases were evaluated with the single acquisition method. In the double acquisition method, the two sets of images are acquired as two independent scans, and in the single acquisition method, the images are acquired serially as a single scan.

Results: The findings for the double acquisition method agreed with the surgical findings in 23 cases (69.7 %), while findings from the single acquisition method agreed with the surgical findings in 26 cases (76.5 %).

Conclusion: Pre-surgical evaluation for tumor-brain adhesion by brain surface motion imaging provides helpful information for meningioma surgery, especially when using the single acquisition method.