Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy a powerful technique for providing diagnosis and prognosis in paediatric brain tumour patients

Non-invasive MR imaging provides vital information to clinicians on tumour location but is unable to reliably differentiate tumour types, which is important for deciding treatment regimes. Advanced imaging such as diffusion, perfusion and spectroscopy can give insight to the biological function of the tumour. Spectroscopy can be utilised to observe metabolite chemical concentrations in tissue, which vary in different tissue types. Research at the Birmingham Children's hospital has shown that by looking at a range of these chemicals as a profile, the main paediatric tumour types can be characterised. The individual metabolite changes may also be used to predict prognosis of a patient at diagnosis. Identifying tumour types or tumour aggression early can change the treatment protocol and improve patient outcome.

Dr Ben Babourina-Brooks completed his PhD at The Centre for Advanced Imaging and is currently a Research Fellow at the Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences, University of Birmingham, UK.