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CompletedNCT02884947Updated Apr 9, 2018

Improving Surgical Outcomes in Patients With Low Grade Gliomas Using Advanced Pre- and Intra-operative MRI

An observational study in Brain Neoplasms, sponsored by University College, London. Completed at 1 site in United Kingdom. Open to participants aged 18 Years and older. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2018-04-09.

Sponsored by University College, London · Observational

Study type
Observational
Model
Cohort
Time perspective
Prospective
Enrollment
31
Ages
18 Years and older
Sex
All
01

Study summary

This aim of this study is to improve the outcomes for patient with gliomas undergoing neurosurgery by maximising the extent of resection whilst minimising neurological morbidity. This will be achieved through the use of advanced MRI, fMRI and DTI, performed at two stages of the patients' clinical management.

Read the detailed description

Low grade gliomas are often located near to and infiltrate into important parts of brain which are involved with language and motor function. During surgery to remove these tumours, there is a fine balance between trying to remove as much of the tumour as possible and limiting any damage to these functionally important parts of the brain which, particularly in a young patient, may result in impairment for the rest of their life.

Functional MRI (fMRI) can be used to identify these functionally important cortical areas and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) can be used to identify the important subcortical and deep white matter tracts connecting these regions. The use of these advanced imaging techniques performed pre-operatively to plan surgery is now commonplace however their role in guiding the actual operation itself is limited because of the occurrence of 'brain shift', this being deformation in the contour of the brain parenchyma which occurs as the tumour is resected. This can result in inaccuracies if the pre-operative advanced MRI data is being used in the neuronavigational system to guide surgery.

The main aim of this study is to determine the optimal method of providing updated, spatially accurate data on the location of these functionally important areas of the brain to the neurosurgeon intra-operatively. In this study, two different techniques will be compared. The first is the acquisition of real-time fMRI and DTI acquired intra-operatively during tumour resection. The second is to use intra-operatively acquired structural and diffusion sequences to perform non-rigid co-registration of fMRI and DTI data which has been acquired before surgery. The feasibility and then the accuracy of these two techniques will be evaluated.

The second aim of this study is to better understand the effect that the tumour and surgery have on language function as this will have important implications on the planning of the surgical approach, the counselling of patients of the possible risks of surgery and in helping to decide long term treatments. This will be achieved by performing advanced MRI scans, in particular an extensive language fMRI paradigm pre-operatively and post-operatively in patients with gliomas undergoing surgery. This will be combined with clinical testing of language function. Greater understanding of the neural plasticity in this functionally important system could allow for a greater, maximal resection.

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Conditions studied

  • Brain Neoplasms

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Keywords

  • Brain Neoplasms
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
  • Neurosurgery
03

In context

Brain Neoplasms

1,960 studies on the registry are indexed under Brain Neoplasms; 516 are open to participants now.

This study's enrollment of 31 is below the median of 100 across 380 observational studies indexed under Brain Neoplasms.

Browse Brain Neoplasms studies →

Lead sponsor

University College, London is the lead sponsor of 632 studies on the registry; 145 are open to participants now.

Of its 6 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 2 (33%) have results posted.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
18 Years and older
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No
Sampling method
Non-probability sample

Study population

Patients with intrinsic brain tumours which require surgical resection

Inclusion criteria

  • Intrinsic brain tumour requiring resection
  • Aged 18 years or over

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Inability to give consent
  • Contraindication to MRI
  • No English language comprehension
05

Study design

Observational model
Cohort
Time perspective
Prospective
Enrollment
31 participants (actual)
Patient registry
No
06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Number of participants with clinically applicable intra-operatively acquired fMRI data.

    The intra-operatively acquired fMRI data will be assessed by a neuroradiologist, experienced in the interpretation of fMRI data for application to neurosurgical planning. The data will be evaluated using a 3 point scoring system.

    Time frame: 6 months following completion of data collection for 31 participants.

  2. Number of participants with spatially accurate co-registered pre-operative DTI data.

    The pre-operatively acquired DTI data, which has been co-registered using a non-rigid algorithm to intra-operatively acquired structural data, will be assessed for accuracy by comparison with intra-operatively acquired DTI using the Dice similarity coefficient (DSC).

    Time frame: 12 months following completion of data collection for 31 participants.

  3. Change in language fMRI data for participants

    The language fMRI data for participants will be compared with language fMRI data from a control group to assess for both group and individual differences. This will be performed using multivariate regression in the analysis program: Statistical Parametric Mapping.

    Time frame: 12 months following completion of data collection collection for 31 participants.

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Study locations

1 site
  • UCL Institute of Neurology
    London, WC1N 3BG, United Kingdom
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Updates

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Apr 9, 2018, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
09

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT02884947
Lead sponsor
University College, London
Responsible party
Sponsor
First posted
Aug 31, 2016
Start date
May 2013
Primary completion
Dec 2015
Completion
Dec 2016
Last update
Apr 9, 2018

Study contacts

Prof Tarek Yousry, Dr. med. Habil, FRCR
principal investigator · Neuroradiological Academic Unit, Department of Brain Repair and Rehabilitation, UCL Institute of Neurology

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

Not currently enrolling

This study is completed, as verified in Aug 2016. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.

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