Assessment of the Extent of Resection in Surgery of High-Grade Glioma—Evaluation of Black Blood Sequences for Intraoperative Magnetic Resonance Imaging at 3 Tesla

Achieving an optimal extent of resection (EOR) whilst keeping lasting neurological decline to a minimum is paramount for modern neurosurgery in patients with high-grade glioma (HGG). To improve EOR assessment, this study introduces Black Blood (BB) imaging, which uses a selective saturation pulse to suppress the blood signal, to 3-Tesla intraoperative magnetic resonance imaging (iMRI). Seventy-three patients (56.4 ± 13.9 years, 64.4% male) with contrast-enhancing HGGs underwent iMRI, including contrast-enhanced (CE) and non-CE 3D turbo field-echo imaging (TFE; acquisition time: 4:20 min per sequence) and CE and non-CE 3D BB imaging (acquisition time: 1:36 min per sequence). Two readers (R1 and R2) retrospectively evaluated the EOR and diagnostic confidence (1—very inconfident to 5—very confident) as well as the delineation of tumor boarders and spread of contrast-enhancing tumor components (in case of contrast-enhancing tumor residuals). Furthermore, the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) was measured for contrast-enhancing tumor residuals. Both BB and conventional TFE imaging allowed for the correct detection of all contrast-enhancing tumor residuals intraoperatively (considering postsurgical MRI and histopathological evaluation as the ground truth for determination of the lack/presence of contrast-enhancing tumor residuals), but BB imaging showed significantly higher diagnostic confidence (R1: 4.65 ± 0.53 vs. 3.88 ± 1.02, p < 0.0001; R2: 4.75 ± 0.50 vs. 4.25 ± 0.81, p < 0.0001). Delineation of contrast-enhancing tumor residuals and detection of their spread into adjacent brain parenchyma was better for BB imaging. Accordingly, significantly higher CNRs were noted for BB imaging (48.1 ± 32.1 vs. 24.4 ± 15.3, p < 0.0001). In conclusion, BB imaging is not inferior to conventional TFE imaging for EOR assessment, but may significantly reduce scanning time for iMRI whilst increasing diagnostic confidence. Furthermore, given the better depiction of contrast-enhancing tumor residual spread and borders, BB imaging could support achieving complete macroscopic resection in patients suffering from HGG, which is clinically relevant as an optimal EOR is correlated to prolonged survival.