ArticleCancers2026
Histopathological and Quantitative Correlates of Intraoperative Narrow Band Imaging in Brain Metastasis Surgery.
Article in Cancers, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
BACKGROUND/
objectivesAccurate intraoperative identification of the tumor-brain interface is important in brain metastasis surgery, but visual assessment under white light is subjective. Narrow-band imaging (NBI) enhances hemoglobin-dependent optical contrast without an exogenous agent; whether its intraoperative appearance corresponds to tumor tissue, and whether it measurably increases tumor-to-normal image contrast, has not been established in this setting.
methodsIn this retrospective, single-center, exploratory study, we evaluated 25 consecutive patients with brain metastases resected using a 4K three-dimensional exoscope equipped with NBI. In three selected patients, spatially adjacent specimens were separately sampled from grayish-appearing and whitish-appearing regions and assessed histopathologically in a non-blinded, descriptive manner. In all 25 patients, paired white-light and NBI images were retrospectively analyzed in Fiji/ImageJ using regions of interest drawn over tissue visually judged to be tumor or normal brain.
resultsIn the three patients with paired histology, grayish-appearing specimens contained metastatic tumor cells and whitish-appearing specimens did not; this observation derives from a small, selectively sampled subset and should be regarded as preliminary. Across all 25 patients, absolute tumor-to-normal gray-value contrast was significantly greater under NBI than white light (69.628 ± 45.338 vs. 44.287 ± 29.640; mean paired increase, 25.342; 95% CI, 9.169-41.514;
conclusionsIn this exploratory, non-blinded, retrospective study, NBI increased objective image contrast between visually identified tumor and normal brain relative to white light, and its grayish appearance corresponded to tumor tissue in a small histologically sampled subset. These findings support NBI as a feasible, agent-free adjunct that warrants prospective, blinded validation before its diagnostic accuracy or clinical benefit can be assessed.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.