FLT PET and MR spectroscopy: The voxels do the talking for high-grade gliomas

A voxel-based comparison of F-18 fluorothymidine (FLT) PET and MR spectroscopy revealed good contrast between tumorous and healthy tissues for both methods, according to a study presented during the scientific session of the 2014 European Congress of Radiology (ECR), which concludes today at Austria Center Vienna.

Jiri Keller, PhD, assistant professor from the department of neurology at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, and colleagues assessed both modalities by conducting FLT PET/CT, MRI and MR spectroscopy on 10 patients with high grade gliomas. For the MR portion of imaging, a combination of glycerophosphocholine plus phosphocholine, creatine, lactate, and n-acteylaspartate concentrations were analyzed in a technique called 2D chemical shift imaging.

“[FLT] PET is the best for differentiating enhancing part of the tumor over the control or normal brain tissue, but you can see the discrimination using glycerophosphocholine and the field of view is quite nice, as well,” Keller explained during the presentation.  

All imaging was performed within a two-week period and the scans were then fused into a voxel-based map of imaging data that was then analyzed to see which modality showed the best diagnostic accuracy.

Results showed that both FLT PET and MR images were clear and informative. This is the first voxel-based comparison of the two techniques on record.