Open Research Newcastle
Browse

Using the apparent diffusion coefficient to identifying MGMT promoter methylation status early in glioblastoma: importance of analytical method

Download (575.22 kB)
journal contribution
posted on 2025-05-11, 12:05 authored by Dayle Rundle-Thiele, Bryan Day, Alan Coulthard, Stuart Crozier, Stephen Rose, Brett Stringer, Michael FayMichael Fay, Jennifer MartinJennifer Martin, Rosalind L. Jeffree, Paul Thomas, Christopher Bell, Oliver Salvado, Yaniv Gal
Introduction: Accurate knowledge of O⁶-methylguanine methyltransferase (MGMT) gene promoter subtype in patients with glioblastoma (GBM) is important for treatment. However, this test is not always available. Pre-operative diffusion MRI (dMRI) can be used to probe tumour biology using the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC); however, its ability to act as a surrogate to predict MGMT status has shown mixed results. We investigated whether this was due to variations in the method used to analyse ADC. Methods: We undertook a retrospective study of 32 patients with GBM who had MGMT status measured. Matching pre-operative MRI data were used to calculate the ADC within contrast enhancing regions of tumour. The relationship between ADC and MGMT was examined using two published ADC methods. Results: A strong trend between a measure of 'minimum ADC' and methylation status was seen. An elevated minimum ADC was more likely in the methylated compared to the unmethylated MGMT group (U = 56, P = 0.0561). In contrast, utilising a two-mixture model histogram approach, a significant reduction in mean measure of the 'low ADC' component within the histogram was associated with an MGMT promoter methylation subtype (P < 0.0246). Conclusion: This study shows that within the same patient cohort, the method selected to analyse ADC measures has a significant bearing on the use of that metric as a surrogate marker of MGMT status. Thus for dMRI data to be clinically useful, consistent methods of data analysis need to be established prior to establishing any relationship with genetic or epigenetic profiling.

History

Journal title

Journal of Medical Radiation Sciences

Volume

62

Issue

2

Pagination

92-98

Publisher

John Wiley & Sons

Language

  • en, English

College/Research Centre

Faculty of Health and Medicine

School

School of Medicine and Public Health

Rights statement

© 2015 The Authors. Journal of Medical Radiation Sciences published by Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd on behalf of Australian Institute of Radiography and New Zealand Institute of Medical Radiation Technology. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

Usage metrics

    Publications

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC