Quantitative evaluation of neutral amino acid transport in cerebral gliomas using positron emission tomography and fluorine-18 fluorophenylalanine

: Ogawa T, Miura S, Murakami M, Iida H, Hatazawa J, Inugami A, Kanno I, Yasui N, Sasajima T, Uemura K

Publisher: SPRINGER VERLAG

: 1996

: European Journal of Nuclear Medicine

: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NUCLEAR MEDICINE

: EUR J NUCL MED

: 23

: 8

: 889

: 895

: 7

: 0340-6997

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01084361

To elucidate the mechanism of large neutral amino acid (LNAA) transport in cerebral gliomas and to evaluate the clinical usefulness of positron emission tomography (PET) with fluorine-18 fluorophenylalanine (F-18-Phe), we examined 18 patients with cerebral glioma using dynamic PET and F-18-Phe, By employing two-compartment model analysis, the influx rate K-1, the efflux rate k(2) and the distribution volume (V-d) Of F-18-Phe were estimated in tumour tissue and contralateral normal grey matter. F-18-Phe showed increased accumulation in tumour tissue regardless of the grade of malignancy in all patients, The rate of uptake of F-18-Phe in high-grade glioma was significantly higher than in low-grade glioma (P < 0.05). However, it was difficult to evaluate the tumour grade only from the F-18-Phe accumulation in individual cases. Values of K-1 and V-d were significantly increased in the tumour tissue. The K-1 value of the tumour tissue tended to decrease with increasing LNAA concentration in plasma, Therefore, influx of F-18-Phe into tumour tissue is mainly related to the carrier-mediated active transport. It is concluded that PET with F-18-Phe is of clinical value for tumour detection rather than assessment of tumour malignancy.