Abstract

5-ALA-induced protoporphyrin IX (PpIX) fluorescence enables to guiding in intra-operative surgical glioma resection. However at present, it has yet to be shown that this method is able to identify infiltrative component of glioma. In extracted tumor tissues we measured a two-peaked emission in low grade gliomas and in the infiltrative component of glioblastomas due to multiple photochemical states of PpIX. This spectral complexity of the fluorescence emission spectrum brings new limits in the sensibility of current methods to measured PpIX concentration. We propose new measured parameters, by taking into consideration the spectral complexity, to overcome these limitations in sensitivity. These parameters clearly distinguish the solid component of glioblastomas from low grade gliomas and infiltrative component of glioblastomas.

© 2013 SPIE