Juvenile pilocytic astrocytoma (JPA) is claimed to be a brain tumor that apparently arises mostly in children and affects the midline, basal, and posterior fossa structures. It is also referred to as benign tumor of childhood. Keeping in lines with the above topic, a study claims that operative plans for eliminating JPA, tumors in the thalamus of the brain could be augmented with Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI).
The sensitivity of DTI imaging is said to enable the visualization of nerve fiber bundles in the brain. This data could make the most of the prospective of entirely eradicating the tumor while evading harm to the fiber bundles that appear to be directly associated with motor functions of the patient.
Jeffrey H. Wisoff, MD, director of the Division of Pediatric Neurosurgery at NYU Langone Medical Center, commented, “This study of six children with thalamic JPA showed that using advanced MRI technology can help identify distorted nerve fiber bundles around brain tumors. This allows an otherwise inoperable tumor to be completely removed which can hopefully lead to a cure.â€
Traditional imaging methods like structural MRI, has apparently been ground-breaking in assisting to expose chief anatomical attributes of the brain, main gray matter which is apparently fabricated of nerve cell bodies.
Diffusion Tensor Imaging, a variation of MRI, could aid in recognizing white matter, or nerve fiber bundles, by means of particular radio-frequency and magnetic field pulses to trail the progress of water molecules of the brain. In majority of the brain tissues, water molecules supposedly disperse in all diverse directions.
But they are said to be inclined to disseminate along the length of axons, whose covering of white, fatty myelin holds them in. The study authors may generate images of axons by examining the course of water flow.
The finding was published in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics.