(July 14, 2015) Despite
modern chemoradiation therapy it is still very difficult to give reliable
prognoses for malignant gliomas. Surgical removal of the glioma is still the
preferred method of treatment. Doctors at Universitätsklinikum Erlangen’s
Department of Neurosurgery have now developed a new procedure for analysing
radiological imaging scans which makes it possible to predict the course of a
disease relatively precisely. Their findings have now been published in the
journal ‘Scientific Reports’.
A quick and safe way
of classifying a tumour’s operability
The Friedlein Grading A/B (FGA/B) classification system –
named after the physician Katharina Friedlein – is a quick and precise way of
determining whether surgical removal is the best possible treatment method for
a given tumour. Essentially, the Erlangen-based doctors classify tumours
according to their position in the brain in the context of a routine magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI) scan. Tumours that are not located in functional brain
regions or that are located at a certain distance from such regions are
classified as FGA, while tumours that are close to or inside a functional brain
region are classified as FGB.
Developing precise
low-risk strategies
With the FGA/B method it possible to plan the consequences
of tumour surgery, which is crucial for the success of the treatment, in a
precise, low-risk and quantitative manner. This makes the Friedlein Grading
system the first classification system which can be easily applied in clinical
practice. ‘There have already been several attempts in medicine to develop such
a classification system.