Arterial Spin Labeling Perfusion in Pediatric Brain Tumors: A Review of Techniques, Quality Control, and Quantification

• Published in: Cancers Vol. 14; no. 19; p. 4734
• Main Authors: Troudi, Abir, Tensaouti, Fatima, Baudou, Eloise, Péran, Patrice, Laprie, Anne
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 28.09.2022; MDPI
• Subjects: Blood flow; Brain cancer; Brain mapping; Brain tumors; Cerebral blood flow; Chemotherapy; Children; Cognition; Cognitive ability; Complications; Diagnosis; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Life Sciences; Magnetic resonance imaging; Methods; Neuroimaging; Pediatrics; Perfusion; Quality control; Quality of life; Radiation therapy; Review; Structure-function relationships; Tomography; Tumors; Tumors in children; Velocity; France; cerebral blood flow; perfusion MRI; quality control; pediatric tumor; arterial spin labeling
• ISSN: 2072-6694; 2072-6694
• DOI: 10.3390/cancers14194734

Arterial spin labeling (ASL) is a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique for measuring cerebral blood flow (CBF). This noninvasive technique has added a new dimension to the study of several pediatric tumors before, during, and after treatment, be it surgery, radiotherapy, or chemotherapy. However, ASL has three drawbacks, namely, a low signal-to-noise-ratio, a minimum acquisition time of 3 min, and limited spatial summarize current resolution. This technique requires quality control before ASL-CBF maps can be extracted and before any clinical investigations can be conducted. In this review, we describe ASL perfusion principles and techniques, summarize the most recent advances in CBF quantification, report technical advances in ASL (resting-state fMRI ASL, BOLD fMRI coupled with ASL), set out guidelines for ASL quality control, and describe studies related to ASL-CBF perfusion and qualitative and semi-quantitative ASL weighted-map quantification, in healthy children and those with pediatric brain tumors.