Dowsing for Tumours

"Water, water everywhere..." goes the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and he couldn't be more right. Roughly 70 percent of the Earth's surface is covered in it and it makes up 60 percent of the average human. Detecting how water molecules move within our tissues can tell us about their health. This is the basis of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Water moves through cancerous tissue differently than normal tissue, allowing DTI to detect tumours. Plugging data from DTI into a mathematical model, called the supertoroidal model, provides even more information. Standard MRI scans struggle to differentiate between tumour tissue and surrounding oedema – tissue swelling due to accumulating water. Supertoroidal DTI can detect this difference, as shown in this image of a brain tumour. The tumour mass (red/pink) stands out amid the oedema (blue/cyan). This tool could provide patients with more accurate prognoses and aid surgeons in removing tumours.

Written by Lux Fatimathas

Lux Fatimathas

Writer

Having pursued science through a career in research, communications and publishing, she is currently a writer and editor for a healthcare marketing agency and also juggles freelance science writing.

• Image from work by Choukri Mekkaoui and colleagues
• Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Boston, MA, USA
• Image originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Published in PLOS One, January 2016