Altered glymphatic-related MRI markers in children with acute lymphoblastic and myeloid leukemia at diagnosis

作者：Shu Su, Zhou Liu, Shuzhen Huang, Xiang Yu Gao, Chengfen Deng, Weifeng Hou, Long Qian, Libin Huang, Yanlai Tang, Zhiyun Yang, Liping Lin · 发表于：Cancer Imaging · 年份：2026 · DOI：10.1186/s40644-026-01045-5 · 被引用次数：1 · 研究领域：Lymphatic Disorders and Treatments、Cerebrospinal fluid and hydrocephalus、Spinal Fractures and Fixation Techniques

BACKGROUND: While the discovery of the glymphatic system has greatly advanced our understanding of waste clearance and fluid dynamics in central nervous system diseases, the neurofluid dynamics in pediatric acute leukemia remain to be elucidated. This study sought to evaluate MRI markers putatively related to neurofluid dynamics in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML), including perivascular space (PVS) burden, free water (FW) fraction, and diffusion tensor imaging along the PVS (DTI-ALPS). METHODS: Seventy-two children with acute leukemia and 72 age- and sex-matched typically developing (TD) children (50 ALL and TDs1; 22 AML and TDs2) were included in this prospective study. Group differences in brain volumetric measures and glymphatic-related MRI markers were evaluated. In addition, MRI metrics that differed significantly between groups were further examined for associations with clinical variables and total sleep scale scores using partial correlation analyses. RESULTS: Compared to TDs, ALL and AML showed no significant differences in intracranial volume. Compared with TDs, decreased brain parenchymal volume and gray matter volume were found in both children with ALL and AML (all FDR-corrected P ≤ 0.04). Compared with TDs, the ALL group exhibited reduced white matter volume and increased cerebrospinal fluid volume (all FDR-corrected P ≤ 0.001), while the AML group showed no significant differences in these measures. For glymphatic-r...