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Radiation-induced changes in normal-appearing gray matter in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma: a magnetic resonance imaging voxel-based morphometry study

  • Functional Neuroradiology
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Abstract

Introduction

Evidence is accumulating that temporal lobe radiation necrosis in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) after radiotherapy (RT) could involve gray matter (GM). The purpose of the study was to assess the radiation-induced GM volume differences between NPC patients who had and had not received RT and the effect of time after RT on GM volume differences in those patients who had received RT.

Methods

We used magnetic resonance imaging voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to assess differences in GM volume between 30 NPC patients with normal-appearing whole-brain GM after RT and 15 control patients with newly diagnosed but not yet medically treated NPC. Correlation analyses were used to investigate the relationship between GM volume changes and time after RT.

Results

Patients who had received RT had GM volume decreases in the bilateral superior temporal gyrus, left middle temporal gyrus, right fusiform gyrus, right precentral gyrus, and right inferior parietal lobule (p < 0.001, uncorrected, cluster size >100 voxels). Moreover, the correlation analysis indicated that regional GM volume loss in the left superior temporal gyrus, left middle temporal gyrus, and right fusiform gyrus were negatively related to the mean dose to the ipsilateral temporal lobe, respectively.

Conclusion

These results indicate that GM volume deficits in bilateral temporal lobes in patients who had received RT might be radiation-induced. Our findings might provide new insight into the pathogenesis of radiation-induced structural damage in normal-appearing brain tissue. Yet this is an exploratory study, whose findings should therefore be taken with caution.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants from the National Nature Science Foundation of China (no. 81071207, 81271622, and 81071890), the Training Programme Foundation for the Talents by Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University in China, the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (NCET-12-0562), the Sun Yat-Sen University Clinical Research 5010 Program (201310), the Guangdong Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (no. S2013020012726), and Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province, China (no. 2011B061300090).

Conflict of interest

We declare that we have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Imaging and Interventional Radiology, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center; State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China; Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, 651 Dongfeng East Road, Guangzhou, 510060, People’s Republic of China

    Xiao-Fei Lv, Xiao-Li Zheng, Wei-Dong Zhang, Li-Zhi Liu & You-Ming Zhang

  2. Department of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China

    Ming-Yuan Chen

  3. Department of Medical Imaging and Interventional Radiology, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, 651 Dongfeng Road East, Guangzhou, 510060, People’s Republic of China

    Li Li

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  1. Xiao-Fei Lv
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Correspondence to Li Li.

Additional information

Xiao-Fei Lv, Xiao-Li Zheng, and Wei-Dong Zhang contributed equally to this work.

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Lv, XF., Zheng, XL., Zhang, WD. et al. Radiation-induced changes in normal-appearing gray matter in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma: a magnetic resonance imaging voxel-based morphometry study. Neuroradiology 56, 423–430 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00234-014-1338-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00234-014-1338-y

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