From the clinician's point of view - What is the status quo of positron emission tomography in patients with brain tumors?

ABSTRACT: The most common type of primary brain tumor is malignant glioma. Despite intensive therapeutic efforts, the majority of these neoplasms remain incurable. Imaging techniques are important for initial tumor detection and comprise indispensable tools for monitoring treatment. Structural imaging using contrast-enhanced MRI is the method of choice for brain tumor surveillance, but its capacity to differentiate tumor from nonspecific tissue changes can be limited, particularly with posttreatment gliomas. Metabolic imaging using positron-emission-tomography (PET) can provide relevant additional information, which may allow for better assessment of tumor burden in ambiguous cases. Specific PET tracers have addressed numerous molecular targets in the last decades, but only a few have achieved relev

SUBMITTER: Galldiks N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4648307 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature