A Probabilistic Atlas of Diffuse WHO Grade II Glioma Locations in the Brain

Abstract

Diffuse WHO grade II gliomas are diffusively infiltrative brain tumors characterized by an unavoidable anaplastic transformation. Their management is strongly dependent on their location in the brain due to interactions with functional regions and potential differences in molecular biology. In this paper, we present the construction of a probabilistic atlas mapping the preferential locations of diffuse WHO grade II gliomas in the brain. This is carried out through a sparse graph whose nodes correspond to clusters of tumors clustered together based on their spatial proximity. The interest of such an atlas is illustrated via two applications. The first one correlates tumor location with the patient’s age via a statistical analysis, highlighting the interest of the atlas for studying the origins and behavior of the tumors. The second exploits the fact that the tumors have preferential locations for automatic segmentation. Through a coupled decomposed Markov Random Field model, the atlas guides the segmentation process, and characterizes which preferential location the tumor belongs to and consequently which behavior it could be associated to. Leave-one-out cross validation experiments on a large database highlight the robustness of the graph, and yield promising segmentation results.

Is the anatomical distribution of low-grade gliomas linked to regions of gliogenesis?

“…Previous studies on the distribution of molecular subtypes in gliomas have used a lobe-oriented approach that does not necessarily reflect the stem-cell theory of origin in gliomas [1]. Even so, it has been shown that LGGs in general are preferentially located near the insula [22] and are rarely found in the posterior regions of the brain [23,24]. IDH-mutated gliomas are more often located in the frontal lobes, specifically around the rostral extension of the lateral ventricles [25][26][27], a location also seen in IDHmutated glioblastomas [28,29].…”

Artificial intelligence in radiology

“…Such atlases have enabled more accurate automated segmentations, as they contain information regarding the expected locations of tumours across entire patient populations 46 . Applications of probabilistic atlases include segmenting brain MRI for locating diffuse low-grade glioma 50 , prostate MRI for volume estimation 51 and head and neck CT for radiotherapy treatment planning 52 , to name a few.…”

High ATP2A2 expression correlates with better prognosis of diffuse astrocytic tumor patients

“…According to the World Health Organization (WHO) scheme, it represents a heterogeneous group of diseases with different degrees of malignancy from relatively indolent diffuse astrocytomas to highly aggressive glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) (1). Among these tumors, grade II astrocytomas are characterized by low level proliferative activity, but often recur, and some of the types tend to progress to higher grades of malignancy (1,2). The prognosis of patients with GBM, the most malignant astrocytoma, remains rather dismal.…”