Glioblastoma (GBM) exhibits two principal growth phenotypes: infiltrative, characterized by diffuse invasion with minimal mass effect, and proliferative, characterized by pronounced tissue compression. Their quantitative delineation and prognostic implications remain uncertain. We introduce an MRI-derived biomarker, the dynamic infiltration rate (DIR), defined as the ratio of tumor-volume expansion to mass-effect--induced peritumoral compression, and evaluate it in silico and clinically. In a synthetic dataset spanning realistic infiltrative-proliferative spectra, DIR correlates strongly with ground truth (R2=0.85). Applied to patient data, a data-driven threshold separates high- and low-infiltration groups with markedly different overall survival (median 16.0 versus 35.2 weeks; log-rank p<0.001; hazard ratio 2.49). Multivariate Cox analysis adjusted for age, sex, and MGMT status confirms DIR as an independent prognostic factor (HR = 1.38, 95% CI 1.12-1.70; p=0.0027). DIR therefore differentiates proliferative from infiltrative GBM phenotypes and provides prognostic information that could inform personalized therapy and follow-up.
@article{arxiv.2505.17715,
title = {Biomechanical Mapping of Tumor Growth: A Novel Method to Quantify Glioma Infiltration and Mass Effect},
author = {Carles López-Mateu and Maria Gómez-Mahiques and F. Javier Gil-Terrón and Víctor Montosa-i-Micó and Donatas Sederevičius and Kyrre E. Emblem and Juan M. García-Gómez and Elies Fuster-García},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.17715},
year = {2025}
}