3D MRSI-nosologic imaging - Fast multi-modal imaging for diagnosis and therapy assessment of tumour patients

From 01-01-2012 to 31-12-2015

Description

Malignant gliomas are aggressive tumours with poor prognosis. Taking into account the aggressivenature of these tumours and the wide age range at which they occur, malignant gliomas have aconsiderable socio-economic impact.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is the imaging modality ofchoice in diagnosis, aggressiveness assessment and follow-up of these tumours. However, in themanagement of malignant gliomas current imaging techniques still lack in diagnostic accuracy.

In this project, we aim to develop an imaging protocol in which different advanced MR techniques arecombined within an examination time acceptable for patients.

Furthermore, our goal is to develop(automated) data processing algorithms which address the following areas:

(a) establish an accuratediagnosis,

(b) make an early prognosis on success of therapy,

(c) identify areas of microscopic tumourinfiltration,

(d) identify mechanisms that contribute to success and failure of (new) therapeuticinterventions.

Considering the diversity of imaging and spectroscopic data being collected for each patient over time,fundamental computational problems arise, such as reliable extraction of meaningful features from lowquality spectroscopic data, or optimal combination of all available data sources for robustclassification. Novel data analysis methods will be developed in this project, such as metabolic featureextraction with 3D spatial prior knowledge, and multi-modal approaches to 3D nosologic imaging.

Team

• Uwe Himmerleich, Co-promoter (External)
• Eric Achten, Co-promoter (External)
• Dirk Van Roost, Co-promoter (External)
• Sabine Van Huffel, Promoter

Financing

Funding: FWO - Research Foundation - Flanders

Program/Grant Type: FWO Research Grant - FWO Research Grant