The assessment of immature microvascular density in brain gliomas with dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging

Purpose: This study was designed to quantitatively evaluate the immature microvascular density (MVD) of brain gliomas using the volume transfer constant (K-trans) and volume of extravascular extracellular space per unit volume of tissue (V-e) from dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) noninvasively. Materials and methods: Fifty-seven patients (35 males, 22 females; age range, 14-70, mean age 46 +/- 12 years old) with brain glioma were included in this study. The maximal values of K-trans and V-e of all patients with brain glioma (grade II 24,1117 and IV 26) were obtained. The CD105-microvascular density (CD105-MVD) of each tumor was measured in surgical specimen. The differences of K-trans, V-e and CD105-MVD between the different grades of gliomas were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U-test. The Pearman correlation coefficient was determined between K-trans, V-e and CD105-MVD. A P-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The differences in K-trans, V-e and CD105-MVD were statistically significant between low-grade glioma (LGG) and high-grade glioma (HGG) (P=0.001, P<0.001, P<0.001). The K-trans, Ve and CD105-MVD of grade II were significantly lower than those of grade III and IV. K-trans and V-e were positively correlated with CD105-MVD in HGG (P<0.001, P<0.001). Conclusions: Our results suggest DCE-MRI plays an important part in noninvasively evaluating the immature MVD of brain gliomas. (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.