ABSTRACT
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with its excellent soft tissue visualization and variety of imaging sequences has evolved to one of the most important noninvasive diagnostic tools for the detection and evaluation of treatment response of cerebral tumors. Nevertheless, conventional MRI presents limitations regarding certain tumor properties, such as infiltration and grading [1]. It is evident that a more accurate detection of infiltrating cells beyond the tumoral margin and a more precise tumor grading would strongly facilitate surgical resection as well as postsurgical treatment procedures. Hence, biopsy still remains the gold standard, although it provides histopathological information about a limited portion of the lesion. Therefore, advanced MRI techniques have been incorporated into the clinical routine in order to aid tumor diagnosis. Diffusion-weighted
imaging (DWI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) provide noninvasively significant structural and functional information in a cellular level, highlighting aspects of the underlying brain pathophysiology.
