Diagnostic Performance of Brain Tumor Reporting and Data System (BT-RADS) in Post Treatment Surveillance of Brain Glioma

Ashour, Manar Maamoun; Kamal, Eman Mohammad; El-shinnawy, Maha Abdel Meguid

doi:10.21608/asmj.2025.372739.1428

Diagnostic Performance of Brain Tumor Reporting and Data System (BT-RADS) in Post Treatment Surveillance of Brain Glioma

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Department of diagnostic radiology, faculty of medicine, Ain Shams University

² Department of Radiology, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University

³ Radiology department, Faculty of medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

10.21608/asmj.2025.372739.1428

Abstract

Background: Currently, structured reporting aims to revolutionize radiology's role in enhancing patient management by improving the clarity of imaging interpretation, unifying the terms used, and simply explaining scoring-linked management via the development of brain tumor reporting and data system (BT-RADS).
Objective: To assess the value of using the BT-RADS scoring system for post-treatment imaging follow-up in patients with brain glioma.
Methods: This retrospective study comprised fifty-four patients diagnosed to have brain glioma. These patients underwent sequential follow-up MRI scans over a period of twelve months. The imaging findings including enhancing component, FLAIR signal and mass effect of the MRI scans were analyzed and interpreted in the form of a checklist and eventually a BT-RADS score was given. The BT-RADS score diagnostic performance at 3 and 6 months to predict the final patient outcome were compared using the 12-month follow-up as the gold standard of reference.
Results: BT-RADS scoring at six months post-treatment showed the higher diagnostic performance in predicting final patient outcome as compared to the performance of the system at three months, with a sensitivity of 77.8% versus 72.2%, and a specificity of 94.4% versus 88.9%. Among the individual MRI diagnostic features included in this system, assessment of enhancement showed the highest performance with a sensitivity and a specificity of 72.2% and 91.7% respectively.
Conclusion: The BT-RADS scoring system demonstrates robust diagnostic accuracy for predicting treatment response at the 12-month follow-up, supporting its routine use in the longitudinal assessment of patients with brain gliomas.

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