Nucl Med Mol Imaging.  2010 Apr;44(1):45-54.

3'-Deoxy-3'-[18F]fluorothymidine and O-(2-[18F]fluoroethyl)-L-tyrosine PET in Patients with Suspicious Recurrence of Glioma after Multimodal Treatment: Initial Results of a Retrospective Comparative Study

• Jeong SY
• Lee TH
• Rhee CH
• Cho AR
• Kim BI
• Cheon GJ
• Choi CW
• Lim SM

Abstract

PURPOSE
The purpose of this study was to compare the uptakes and diagnostic accuracies between 3'-deoxy-3'-[18F] fluorothymidine (FLT) and O-(2-[18F]fluoroethyl)-L-tyrosine (FET) PET in patients with a clinical suspicion of having a recurrence of glioma after multimodality treatment.
METHODS
Thirty-two patients who underwent FLT and FET PET due to abnormal enhancement on magnetic resonance (MR) images were included. According to surgical confirmation or follow-up results, patients were divided into those with therapy-related benign changes (TRBCs) and those with recurrence. Recurrences were divided again into initial low-grade glioma (LGG) and high-grade glioma (HGG). The uptakes of FLT and FET were compared with the maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax) and lesion-to-normal ratio (LNR). The diagnostic accuracies were compared via a receiver-operating-characteristic (ROC) curve analysis.
RESULTS
The LNRs of FLT in recurrences with initial HGG (8.26+/-5.02) were significantly higher than those in recurrences with initial LGG (3.43+/-2.14) and TRBC (1.81+/-0.60). The LNRs of FET in recurrence with initial HGG (2.70+/-0.48) and LGG (3.03+/-1.32) were significantly higher than those in the TRBC (1.60+/-0.47). The areas under the ROC curve (AUCs) of FLT and FET for initial LGG were 0.768 and 0.893, respectively. The AUCs of FLT and FET for initial HGG were 1.000 and 0.964. However, there were no statistical significances. The results for comparing with SUVmax were the same as those with LNR.
CONCLUSIONS
Uptakes of FLT were different according to initial grade in patients with recurrent glioma, but those of FET were not. However, there were no statistical significances in the diagnostic accuracies according to initial grade between the two tracers in this study.

Keyword

Glioma; Recurrence; Initial grade; FLT; FET; PET

MeSH Terms

Area Under Curve
Follow-Up Studies
Glioma
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy
Recurrence
Retrospective Studies
ROC Curve