Optimizing Radiation Therapy For Glioblastoma Patients: A Comparative Study Of Using Different Mri Modalities To Minimize Radiation Injury

Glioblastoma multiforme is the most common and lethal primary malignant brain tumor and radiation therapy is considered the standard of care in the adjuvant setting. Current radiation treatment planning guidelines recommend FLAIR MRI sequence with a 2 cm margin to encompass the subclinical tumor spread. However, the FLAIR modality extensively visualizes the surrounding edema, possibly leading to unnecessary radiation toxicity to healthy brain tissue. We hypothesize that we can optimize radiation therapy by using alternative MRI modalities or by decreasing clinical tumor volume margins to minimize toxicity without compromising accurate tumor targeting. We retrospectively collected data for 21 patients with pathology confirmed recurrence and created radiation treatment plans using ADC, ADC without FLAIR shine-through (ADCst), DWI, T1, and FLAIR. For the FLAIR both a 1 cm and 2 cm margin was used (FLAIR1 and FLAIR2). Boolean operators were used to calculate the accuracy of targeting tumor recurrence and excessive radiation volume compared to the standard FLAIR2 treatment plan. All MRI modalities had complete coverage of the recurrent tumor and the mean differences in accuracy between the different MRI modalities and FLAIR2 was not significant. However, there was a significant reduction in the excessive radiation volume compared to FLAIR2. ADCst had a 51.3% reduction, DWI 42.3%, T1 42.6%, and FLAIR1 44.6% reduction of excessive radiation volume compared to FLAIR2 (p < 0.05). ADC did not have a significant reduction of excessive radiation volume compared to FLAIR2. Our data support the hypothesis that using MRI modalities other than the standard FLAIR or decreasing the margin by 1cm may optimize radiation therapy for GBM patients by reducing unnecessary radiation dose to healthy brain tissue without compromising accuracy. By using new MRI modalities in radiation treatment planning or modifying clinical tumor volume margins we can decrease radiation toxicity to patients to improve their quality of life.