Arterial Spin Labeling Applications in Brain Tumor Imaging
Summary
Arterial spin labeling (ASL) is a non-invasive magnetic resonance perfusion technique that uses magnetically labelled arterial blood water as an endogenous tracer to quantify cerebral blood flow (CBF). By avoiding exogenous contrast agents, ASL is particularly suited to longitudinal surveillance, paediatric assessment and patients with renal impairment. In brain tumours, ASL has been applied to preoperative grading, molecular subtype characterisation, treatment response evaluation and prognostic stratification. Quantitative CBF maps enable differentiation of high-grade from low-grade gliomas, guide biopsy targeting and predict proliferative indices. Combined with diffusion metrics or radiomic analysis, ASL enhances diagnostic accuracy by capturing vascular heterogeneity and microvascular proliferation patterns. In postoperative and surveillance settings, ASL assists in distinguishing treatment-related changes from tumour recurrence, reducing reliance on gadolinium-based agents. Recent advances in three-dimensional pseudocontinuous labelling, background suppression and automated region-of-interest techniques have improved signal-to-noise ratio and reproducibility. Globally, ASL has become an accessible perfusion tool in routine clinical protocols, with growing adoption across diverse healthcare settings for safer, repeatable and quantitative tumour assessment.
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Arterial Spin Labeling Applications in Brain Tumor Imaging publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in arterial spin labeling applications in brain tumor imaging across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Arterial Spin Labeling (ASL): MRI technique that magnetically labels arterial blood water as an endogenous tracer to measure tissue perfusion.
Cerebral Blood Flow (CBF): Volume of blood delivered to brain tissue per unit time, typically expressed in mL/100 g/min.
Dynamic Susceptibility Contrast (DSC): Perfusion MRI method that uses intravenously injected gadolinium-based contrast to assess blood volume and flow.
Perfusion-Weighted Imaging (PWI): MRI sequence sensitive to passage of labelled blood or contrast agent, used to assess tissue perfusion non-invasively.
Region of Interest (ROI): User-defined segment within an image used for quantitative measurement of imaging parameters.
Radiomics: High-throughput extraction of quantitative features from imaging data to characterise tissue heterogeneity and predict clinical outcomes.
References
- Arterial spin labelling MRI for brain tumour surveillance: do we really need cerebral blood flow maps?. European Radiology (2023).
- Diffuse glioma molecular profiling with arterial spin labeling and dynamic susceptibility contrast perfusion MRI: A comparative study. Neuro-Oncology Advances (2024).
- Comparison of ASL and DSC perfusion methods in the evaluation of response to treatment in patients with a history of treatment for malignant brain tumor. BMC Medical Imaging (2024).
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