Perfusion, diffusion, and anatomical MRI characteristics of pathologically confirmed malignant transformation in IDH-mutant gliomas

Abstract Background This study explored MRI characteristics at the time of tumor progression to study pathologically confirmed MT in IDHm 1p/19q-intact astrocytomas (IDHm-A) and IDHm 1p/19q-co-deleted oligodendrogliomas (IDHm-O). Methods N = 64 patients with initial pathological grade 2 IDH-mutant glioma diagnosis who underwent repeated tissue sampling and were classified as pathologically confirmed MT (n = 35) or non-MT (n = 29) with available presurgical anatomical (n = 64), diffusion-weighted (n = 61), and dynamic susceptibility contrast perfusion MRI (n = 53) were retrospectively studied. Measurable contrast enhancement (> 1000 mm3), tumor volume, tumor growth rate, sphericity, median apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), and normalized relative cerebral blood volume (nrCBV) were compared between MT vs non-MT IDHm-A and IDHm-O. Results 81% of contrast-enhancing IDHm-A and 100% of contrast-enhancing IDHm-O demonstrated MT, while 41% of IDHm-A and 62% IDHm-O exhibited both nonenhancing tumor progression and MT. Tumor volumes were significantly larger in patients with MT compared to non-MT groups for IDHm-A (P = .02) and IDHm-O (P = .04). T2/FLAIR tumor volume growth rate was significantly higher (P = .003), nrCBV was significantly higher (P = .002), and ADC trended lower (P = .06) in MT vs non-MT IDHm-A. There were no significant differences in growth rate, ADC, nrCBV, or sphericity when comparing MT vs non-MT IDHm-O (P > .05). Conclusions Many MT IDHm gliomas remain nonenhancing. Growth rate, diffusion, and perfusion MRI show differences between MT and non-MT in IDHm-A but not IDHm-O, which may reflect the different tumor biology of these IDHm molecular subtypes and their need for separate imaging biomarkers. Tumor volumes can help determine MT for both IDHm-A and IDHm-O.