Visualization of Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) For Brain Tumor Diagnosis

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technique is very useful for brain tumor diagnosis. However MRI could not find the integrity and location of white matter tracts around the brain tumors. Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) is an emerging technology that gives information about orientation of nervous fiber, anisotropy and their spatial density, with high resolution. DTI is a noninvasive technique, performed by tracking the diffusion of water molecules through brain tissues. Three different visualization techniques of DTI namely scalar indices, tensor glyph, and tractography were used for brain tumor diagnosis and their main characteristics and drawbacks were compared. These analyses were helpful for determining the exact location of brain tumor and the changes in the white matter bundle in affected area. The variation of white matter structure due to brain tumor is analyzed using these three visualization techniques. Parameters influencing the white matter structure were tuned in each technique, which gives more accurate results than the previous studies. The cystic and the solid part of the tumor were accurately located based on the anisotropic and diffusivity parameters. The two different types of white matter pattern are obtained in affected area by extracting the corpus callosum and cingulum bundle.