OBJECTIVES:A systematic review and meta-analysis were conducted to examine the effect of intraoperative magnetic resonance imaging as surgical adjunct in optimizing tumor resection and minimizing neurological deficits in glioma patients.

METHODS:A comprehensive search was conducted in PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library databases through 10 November 2018 to locate studies that evaluated the efficacy of intraoperative magnetic resonance imaging (iMRI) in achieving optimal extent of resection (EOR) in patients with glioma. Pooled effect estimates were calculated using fixed-effects (FE) and random-effects (RE) models.

RESULTS:Three studies with 256 patients were included in the preliminary analysis. All three studies were observational cohort studies, and two were retrospective. The interim data shows insignificance in the extent of resection between the iMRi guided and the conventional surgeries (mean difference 6.0%, 95% CI [-1.9, 13.9]). The limitations to this analysis are that the RCTs were not included and only three studies are analyzed until now.

CONCLUSIONS:The incorporation of iMRI in surgical procedure for glioma excision has not shown to increase the extent of resection which attributes to the optimization of prognosis.