Search results for "brain tumors"

Implications of irradiating the subventricular zone stem cell niche

2016

Radiation therapy is a standard treatment for brain tumor patients. However, it comes with side effects, such as neurological deficits. While likely multi-factorial, the effect may in part be associated with the impact of radiation on the neurogenic niches. In the adult mammalian brain, the neurogenic niches are localized in the subventricular zone (SVZ) of the lateral ventricles and the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus, where the neural stem cells (NSCs) reside. Several reports showed that radiation produces a drastic decrease in the proliferative capacity of these regions, which is related to functional decline. In particular, radiation to the SVZ led to a reduced long-term olfactory memo…

With a Little Help from My Friends: The Role of Intraoperative Fluorescent Dyes in the Surgical Management of High-Grade Gliomas

2018

High-grade gliomas (HGGs) are the most frequent primary malignant brain tumors in adults, which lead to death within two years of diagnosis. Maximal safe resection of malignant gliomas as the first step of multimodal therapy is an accepted goal in malignant glioma surgery. Gross total resection has an important role in improving overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS), but identification of tumor borders is particularly difficult in HGGS. For this reason, imaging adjuncts, such as 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA) or fluorescein sodium (FS) have been proposed as superior strategies for better defining the limits of surgical resection for HGG. 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA) is i…

Curcumin Affects HSP60 Folding Activity and Levels in Neuroblastoma Cells.

2020

The fundamental challenge in fighting cancer is the development of protective agents able to interfere with the classical pathways of malignant transformation, such as extracellular matrix remodeling, epithelial−mesenchymal transition and, alteration of protein homeostasis. In the tumors of the brain, proteotoxic stress represents one of the main triggering agents for cell transformation. Curcumin is a natural compound with anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties with promising potential for the development of therapeutic drugs for the treatment of cancer as well as neurodegenerative diseases. Among the mediators of cancer development, HSP60 is a key factor for the maintenance of…

A fully automatic approach for multimodal PET and MR image segmentation in gamma knife treatment planning

2017

The aim of this study is to combine Biological Target Volume (BTV) segmentation and Gross Target Volume (GTV) segmentation in stereotactic neurosurgery.Our goal is to enhance Clinical Target Volume (CTV) definition, including metabolic and morphologic information, for treatment planning and patient follow-up.We propose a fully automatic approach for multimodal PET and MR image segmentation. This method is based on the Random Walker (RW) and Fuzzy C-Means clustering (FCM) algorithms. A total of 19 brain metastatic tumors, undergone stereotactic neuro-radiosurgery, were retrospectively analyzed. A framework for the evaluation of multimodal PET/MRI segmentation is presented, considering volume…

DCE and DSC perfusion MRI acquisition: diagnostic accuracy during the follow-up of the primary and metastatic intra-axial brain tumors treated by Ste…

Distinguishing radiation necrosis from tumor recurrence and tumor progression is crucial for the evaluation of treatment response and treatment planning. The appearance of treatment-induced tissue necrosis on conventional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) are very similar to brain tumor recurrence and it could be difficult to differentiate the two entities during the follow-up MRI examinations. Dynamic Susceptibility Contrast-enhanced (DSC) and Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced (DCE) are the MRI perfusion techniques using an exogenous, intravascular, no diffusible gadolinium-based contrast agent. The aim of this study is to compare the diagnostic accuracy of DSC and DCE perfusion MRI in the differen…

Comment on “Computer-Extracted Texture Features to Distinguish Cerebral Radionecrosis from Recurrent Brain Tumors on Multiparametric MRI: A Feasibili…

2017

We have read with great interest the article published by Tiwari et al, “Computer-Extracted Texture Features to Distinguish Cerebral Radionecrosis from Recurrent Brain Tumors on Multiparametric MRI: A Feasibility Study.”[1][1] In their article, they refer to our work regarding brain metastasis

Neuro-radiosurgery treatments: MRI brain tumor seeded image segmentation based on a cellular automata model

2016

Gross Tumor Volume (GTV) segmentation on medical images is an open issue in neuro-radiosurgery. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is the most promi-nent modality in radiation therapy for soft-tissue anatomical districts. Gamma Knife stereotactic neuro-radiosurgery is a mini-invasive technique used to deal with inaccessible or insufficiently treated tumors. During the planning phase, the GTV is usually contoured by radiation oncologists using a manual segmentation procedure on MR images. This methodology is certainly time-consuming and op-erator-dependent. Delineation result repeatability, in terms of both intra- and inter-operator reliability, is only obtained by using computer-assisted appr…

Coplanar Indirect-Navigated Intraoperative Ultrasound: Matching Un-navigated Probes With Neuronavigation During Neurosurgical Procedures. How We Do I…

2021

BACKGROUND Intraoperative ultrasound (IOUS) is becoming more and more adopted in neurosurgery, since it has been associated to greater extent of resection (EOR) and to gross total resection (GTR) during brain tumor surgery. IOUS main limitations are spatial resolution, width and orientation of the field of view and scan quality, which are operator-dependent. Furthermore, most neurosurgeons are not confident with this technique, which needs a long learning curve in order to identify and interpret anatomic structures. OBJECTIVE To describe an effective procedure to take advantages of both IOUS and neuronavigation in case of lack of a navigated ultrasound system. METHODS We propose a reliable …

NeXt for neuro-radiosurgery: A fully automatic approach for necrosis extraction in brain tumor MRI using an unsupervised machine learning technique

2017

Stereotactic neuro-radiosurgery is a well-established therapy for intracranial diseases, especially brain metastases and highly invasive cancers that are difficult to treat with conventional surgery or radiotherapy. Nowadays, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is the most used modality in radiation therapy for soft-tissue anatomical districts, allowing for an accurate gross tumor volume (GTV) segmentation. Investigating also necrotic material within the whole tumor has significant clinical value in treatment planning and cancer progression assessment. These pathological necrotic regions are generally characterized by hypoxia, which is implicated in several aspects of tumor development and gro…