Assessment of Pre-operative Measurements of Tumor Size by MRI Methods as Survival Predictors in Wild Type IDH Glioblastoma

Objective: We evaluate the performance of three MRI methods to determine non-invasively tumor size, as overall survival (OS) and Progression Free Survival (PFS) predictors, in a cohort of wild type, IDH negative, glioblastoma patients. Investigated protocols included bidimensional (2D) diameter measurements, and three-dimensional (3D) estimations by the ellipsoid or semi-automatic segmentation methods. Methods: We investigated OS in a cohort of 44 patients diagnosed with wild type IDH glioblastoma (58.2 ± 11.4 years, 1.9/1 male/female) treated with neurosurgical resection followed by adjuvant chemo and radiotherapy. Pre-operative MRI images were evaluated to determine tumor mass area and volume, gadolinium enhancement volume, necrosis volume, and FLAIR-T(2) hyper-intensity area and volume. We implemented then multivariate Cox statistical analysis to select optimal predictors for OS and PFS. Results: Median OS was 16 months (1–42 months), ranging from 9 ± 2.4 months in patients over 65 years, to 18 ± 1.6 months in younger ones. Patients with tumors carrying O(6)-methylguanin-DNA-methyltransferase (MGMT) methylation survived 30 ± 5.2 vs. 13 ± 2.5 months in non-methylated. Our study evidenced high and positive correlations among the results of the three methods to determine tumor size. FLAIR-T(2) hyper-intensity areas (2D) and volumes (3D) were also similar as determined by the three methods. Cox proportional hazards analysis with the 2D and 3D methods indicated that OS was associated to age ≥ 65 years (HR 2.70, 2.94, and 3.16), MGMT methylation (HR 2.98, 3.07, and 2.90), and FLAIR-T(2) ≥ 2,000 mm(2) or ≥60 cm(3) (HR 4.16, 3.93, and 3.72), respectively. Other variables including necrosis, tumor mass, necrosis/tumor ratio, and FLAIR/tumor ratio were not significantly correlated with OS. Conclusion: Our results reveal a high correlation among measurements of tumor size performed with the three methods. Pre-operative FLAIR-T(2) hyperintensity area and volumes provided, independently of the measurement method, the optimal neuroimaging features predicting OS in primary glioblastoma patients, followed by age ≥ 65 years and MGMT methylation.