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61st Annual Meeting of the German Society of Neurosurgery (DGNC) as part of the Neurowoche 2010
Joint Meeting with the Brazilian Society of Neurosurgery on the 20 September 2010

German Society of Neurosurgery (DGNC)

21 - 25 September 2010, Mannheim

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O-(2-[18F]fluorethyl)-L-tyrosine PET in the predictive clinical evaluation of primary pediatric brain tumors

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  • Sevgi Sarikaya-Seiwert - Neurochirurgische Klinik, Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Düsseldorf, Deutschland
  • Frank Floeth - Wirbelsäule und Schmerz, St. Vinzenz Krankenhaus, Düsseldorf, Deutschland
  • Gabriele Stoffels - Institut für Neurowissenschaften, Jülich, Deutschland
  • Jan Vesper - Neurochirurgische Klinik, Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Düsseldorf, Deutschland
  • Giesela Janßen - Klinik für Kinder-Onkologie, -Hämatologie und Klinische Immunologie, Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Düsseldorf, Deutschland
  • Hans-Jakob Steiger - Neurochirurgische Klinik, Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Düsseldorf, Deutschland
  • Daniel Hänggi - Neurochirurgische Klinik, Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Düsseldorf, Deutschland

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie. 61. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie (DGNC) im Rahmen der Neurowoche 2010. Mannheim, 21.-25.09.2010. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2010. DocP1767

doi: 10.3205/10dgnc238, urn:nbn:de:0183-10dgnc2386

Published: September 16, 2010

© 2010 Sarikaya-Seiwert et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.

Outline

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Objective: Treatment and prognosis of pediatric brain tumours depend mainly on the histological diagnosis including the tumour grade according to WHO classification. Therefore, it would be ideal to achieve further information regarding the grading of childhood brain tumours preoperatively. The aim of the present prospective study was to determine the predictive value of O-(2-[18F]fluorethyl)-L-tyrosine (FET) PET in a series of childhood brain tumours.

Methods: Preoperatively FET-PET studies were performed in a total of 37 patients with primary brain tumors detected with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The data was recorded in four 10-minute frames starting after i.v. injection of FET. The ratio of maximal tumor intensity to mean activity within a region of interest showed the extent of tumor uptake. Lesion/brain ratios of FET uptake greater than 1.6 were considered as reference to tumor tissue. The results of the FET-PET studies were compared with the histological findings obtained after surgery or stereotactic biopsy.

Results: First, the following lesions demonstrated a significant FET uptake in our patient population: Low grade gliomas (WHO °II), high grade gliomas (WHO °III, IV), epenymoma WHO °III, pilomyxoid astrocytoma, teratoma, germinoma, Ewing-sarcoma, medulloblastoma and multiple sclerosis. Second, regarding the grading FET uptake in high grade tumors was significant higher than in low grade tumors. Finally, 9 of 37 patients suffering from an inflammatory lesion, ganglioglioma, pineal tumor, subependymal giant cell astrocytoma and pilocytic astrocytomas showed no uptake.

Conclusions: The results of the present study indicate that FET-PET is a useful method for identifying malignant brain lesions in primary childhood brain tumors. Furthermore the results suggest that high-grade and low-grade brain tumors have specific uptake kinetics of FET.