Multimodal magnetic resonance imaging in the diagnosis and therapeutical follow-up of brain tumors.

Abstract

Multimodal MRI has an important contribution to cancer research. This technique is completely non-invasive and non-ionizing, it provides major information for diagnosis, and answers the questions of therapists before, during, and after treatment. Hence, in this paper we review the interest of these MRI modalities and their impact on the diagnosis, during and after therapeutic care of brain tumors. The MRI modalities allow specifying the localization of the expanding pathological tumoral process, the differential diagnosis between brain tumors and confined lesions of different categories, the diagnosis of the tumoral type of the lesion, assessing the histological grade in cases of glial tumor, and its local extension as well as the therapeutic follow-up. The multimodal MRI approach has a major contribution to the advanced care of brain tumors.