EX VIVO HR-MAS NMR, IN VIVO MRS-MRI AND MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS TO HIGHLIGHT BIOMARKERS IN GLIOMAS

Gliomas account for about 40% of total primitive brain tumors, and discrimination between high and low glioma grade remains a vital diagnostic decision, determining the most effective treatment and having an important impact on patient management and outcome. The ex vivo HR-MAS NMR spectra provide more details about metabolites than in vivo MRS and permits to produce a metabolic picture of the tissues. Accurate biochemical assignment of metabolites will improve our interpretation of HR-MAS data and the translation of NMR tumor biomarkers to in vivo studies. We developed this project on gliomas with the aim to gain a better insight into the discrimination among different grades and subtypes using ex vivo HR-MAS NMR, in vivo MRS, MRI, clinical data, chemometrics and statistical analysis. We performed experiments on 20 specimen from different grade glioma. After a chemometric analysis some small metabolites such as alanine, lactate, myo-inositol and glycine seems to be able to discriminate between high and low grade glioma. The same chemometric analysis was performed on in vivo MR spectrum. A number of metabolites have been identified as potential biomarkers of tumor type; now we need to combine all the in vivo, ex vivo, histological and clinical data to obtain a unique tumor fingerprints. Results gathered from this study should lead to the development of tools that can facilitate the distinction of tumor types and grade that cannot be readily distinguished by histopathology or by routine neuroimaging.