Advanced MRI increases the diagnostic accuracy of recurrent glioblastoma: Single institution thresholds and validation of MR spectroscopy and diffusion weighted MR imaging

•For an effective salvage treatment, an accurate diagnosis of GBM recurrence is essential.•The standard structural MRI has limited sensitivity and specificity to distinguish GBM progression.•GBM recurrence is characterized by the ADCmean value ≤ 1313 × 10− 6 mm2/s and the tCho/tNAA ratio ≥ 1.3.•An institutional definition of thresholds is needed, if advanced imaging should be used accurately in clinical practice.

The accurate identification of glioblastoma progression remains an unmet clinical need. The aim of this prospective single-institutional study is to determine and validate thresholds for the main metabolite concentrations obtained by MR spectroscopy (MRS) and the values of the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) to enable distinguishing tumor recurrence from pseudoprogression. Thirty-nine patients after the standard treatment of a glioblastoma underwent advanced imaging by MRS and ADC at the time of suspected recurrence — median time to progression was 6.7 months. The highest significant sensitivity and specificity to call the glioblastoma recurrence was observed for the total choline (tCho) to total N-acetylaspartate (tNAA) concentration ratio with the threshold ≥ 1.3 (sensitivity 100.0% and specificity 94.7%). The ADCmean value higher than 1313 × 10− 6 mm2/s was associated with the pseudoprogression (sensitivity 98.3%, specificity 100.0%). The combination of MRS focused on the tCho/tNAA concentration ratio and the ADCmean value represents imaging methods applicable to early non-invasive differentiation between a glioblastoma recurrence and a pseudoprogression. However, the institutional definition and validation of thresholds for differential diagnostics is needed for the elimination of setup errors before implementation of these multimodal imaging techniques into clinical practice, as well as into clinical trials.