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Published on: August 17, 2022
Blood oxygen-level dependent functional assessment of cerebrovascular reactivity: Feasibility for intraoperative 3
Jorn Fierstra1, Jan-Karl Burkhardt1, Christiaan Hendrik Bas van Niftrik1
1Department of Neurosurgery, Clinical Neuroscience Center, University Hospital Zurich, University of Zurich, Switzerland.
Purpose:
To assess the feasibility of functional blood oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) MRI to evaluate intraoperative cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR) at 3 Tesla field strength.
Methods:
Ten consecutive neurosurgical subjects scheduled for a clinical intraoperative MRI examination were enrolled in this study. In addition to the clinical protocol a BOLD sequence was implemented with three cycles of 44 s apnea to calculate CVR values on a voxel-by-voxel basis throughout the brain. The CVR range was then color-coded and superimposed on an anatomical volume to create high spatial resolution CVR maps.
Results:
Ten subjects (mean age 34.8 ± 13.4; 2 females) uneventfully underwent the intraoperative BOLD protocol, with no complications occurring. Whole-brain CVR for all subjects was (mean ± SD) 0.69 ± 0.42, whereas CVR was markedly higher for tumor subjects as compared to vascular subjects, 0.81 ± 0.44 versus 0.33 ± 0.10, respectively. Furthermore, color-coded functional maps could be robustly interpreted for a whole-brain assessment of CVR.
Conclusion:
We demonstrate that intraoperative BOLD MRI is feasible in creating functional maps to assess cerebrovascular reactivity throughout the brain in subjects undergoing a neurosurgical procedure. Magn Reson Med 77:806-813, 2017. © 2016 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.
