Nonhistological diagnosis of human cerebral tumors by 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy and amino acid analysis.

We describe a multivariate analysis procedure to classify human cerebral tumors nonhistologically in vitro, combining the use of 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) with automatic amino acid analysis of biopsy extracts. Eighty-one biopsies were obtained surgically and classified histologically in eight classes: high-grade astrocytomas (class 1, n = 19), low-grade astrocytomas (class 2, n = 10), normal brain (class 3, n = 9), medulloblastomas (class 4, n = 4), meningiomas (class 5, n = 18), metastases (class 6, n = 8), neurinomas (class 7, n = 9), and oligodendrogliomas (class 8, n = 4). Perchloric acid extracts were prepared from every biopsy and analyzed by high resolution 1H MRS and automatic amino acid analysis by ionic exchange chromatography. Intensities of 27 resonances and ratios of resonances were measured in the 1H MRS spectra, and 17 amino acid concentrations were determined in the chromatograms. Linear discriminant analysis provided the most adequate combination of these variables for binary classifications of a biopsy between any two possible classes and in multiple choice comparisons, involving the eight possible classes considered. Correct diagnosis was obtained when the class selected by the computer matched the histological diagnosis. In binary comparisons, consideration of the amino acid profile increased the percentage of correct classifications, being always higher than 75% and reaching 100% in many cases. In multilateral comparisons, scores were: high-grade astrocytomas, 80%; low-grade astrocytomas, 74%; normal brain, 100%; medulloblastomas, 100%; meningiomas, 94.5%; metastases, 86%; neurinomas, 100%; and oligodendrogliomas, 75%. These results indicate that statistical multivariate procedures, combining 1H MRS and amino acid analysis of tissue extracts, provide a valuable classifier for the nonhistological diagnosis of biopsies from brain tumors in vitro.