Treatment-Aware Diffusion Probabilistic Model for Longitudinal MRI Generation and Diffuse Glioma Growth Prediction

IEEE Trans Med Imaging. 2025 Jun;44(6):2449-2462. doi: 10.1109/TMI.2025.3533038.

Abstract

Diffuse gliomas are malignant brain tumors that grow widespread through the brain. The complex interactions between neoplastic cells and normal tissue, as well as the treatment-induced changes often encountered, make glioma tumor growth modeling challenging. In this paper, we present a novel end-to-end network capable of future predictions of tumor masks and multi-parametric magnetic resonance images (MRI) of how the tumor will look at any future time points for different treatment plans. Our approach is based on cutting-edge diffusion probabilistic models and deep-segmentation neural networks. We included sequential multi-parametric MRI and treatment information as conditioning inputs to guide the generative diffusion process as well as a joint segmentation process. This allows for tumor growth estimates and realistic MRI generation at any given treatment and time point. We trained the model using real-world postoperative longitudinal MRI data with glioma tumor growth trajectories represented as tumor segmentation maps over time. The model demonstrates promising performance across various tasks, including generating high-quality multi-parametric MRI with tumor masks, performing time-series tumor segmentations, and providing uncertainty estimates. Combined with the treatment-aware generated MRI, the tumor growth predictions with uncertainty estimates can provide useful information for clinical decision-making.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Brain / diagnostic imaging
  • Brain Neoplasms* / diagnostic imaging
  • Brain Neoplasms* / pathology
  • Brain Neoplasms* / therapy
  • Glioma* / diagnostic imaging
  • Glioma* / pathology
  • Glioma* / therapy
  • Humans
  • Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted* / methods
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging* / methods
  • Models, Statistical*
  • Neural Networks, Computer