A comparative anatomical and stereological analysis of total brain volume and glioblastoma volume in patients with glioblastoma

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), commonly referred to as glioblastoma, is a high-grade malignant brain tumor originating from glial cells. It is a tumor with low treatability, demonstrating rapid progression, significantly impairing the patient's quality of life, and showing resistance to treatment. In this study, brain MR images of a total of 30 patients diagnosed with glioblastoma (15 female and 15 male, aged between 40–60 years) were retrospectively collected from the archive via external storage devices. The patients were divided into female and male glioblastoma groups. On average, 25 MR brain images per patient and approximately 7 images containing glioblastoma regions per patient were analyzed. Using the SHTEREOM 1.0 software, which enables the application of stereological methods on these images, total brain volumes and volumes of glioblastoma regions were measured. The program's point grid scale was used for volumetric estimations. Stereological methods are unbiased and highly reliable techniques for volumetric analysis of complex and asymmetric structures such as the brain. The distribution of volumetric data was assessed using the Shapiro-Wilk and Skewness-Kurtosis tests. Since the data were normally distributed, independent samples t-test, one-way ANOVA, and Pearson correlation analyses were applied. Statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS (IBM SPSS for Windows, version 26). While the female group had a lower volume than the male group in terms of total brain volume value, the female group had a higher volume than the male group in terms of glioblastoma volume value. The results showed no statistically significant difference in the ratio of glioblastoma volume to total brain volume between male and female patients (p<0.05).