MRI and Amino Acid Pet Detection of Whole-Brain Tumor Burden

Authors

Peng Chen
Matthew L Scarpelli
Debbie R Healey
Shwetal Mehta
C Chad Quarles

Publication Date

1-1-2023

Journal

Frontiers in Oncology

DOI

10.3389/fonc.2023.1248249

PMID

37810983

PMCID

PMC10558180

PubMedCentral® Posted Date

9-21-2023

PubMedCentral® Full Text Version

Post-print

Abstract

Background: [18F]fluciclovine amino acid PET has shown promise for detecting brain tumor regions undetected on conventional anatomic MRI scans. However, it remains unclear which of these modalities provides a better assessment of the whole brain tumor burden. This study quantifies the performance of [18F]fluciclovine PET and MRI for detecting the whole brain tumor burden.

Methods: Thirteen rats were orthotopically implanted with fluorescently transduced human glioblastoma cells. Rats underwent MRI (T1- and T2-weighted) and [18F]fluciclovine PET. Next brains were excised, optically cleared, and scanned ex vivo with fluorescence imaging. All images were co-registered using a novel landmark-based registration to enable a spatial comparison. The tumor burden identified on the fluorescent images was considered the ground truth for comparison with the in vivo imaging.

Results: Across all cases, the PET sensitivity for detecting tumor burden (median 0.67) was not significantly different than MRI (combined T1+T2-weighted) sensitivity (median 0.61; p=0.85). However, the combined PET+MRI sensitivity (median 0.86) was significantly higher than MRI alone (41% higher; p=0.004) or PET alone (28% higher; p=0.0002). The specificity of combined PET+MRI (median=0.91) was significantly lower compared with MRI alone (6% lower; p=0.004) or PET alone (2% lower; p=0.002).

Conclusion: In these glioblastoma xenografts, [18F]fluciclovine PET did not provide a significant increase in tumor burden detection relative to conventional anatomic MRI. However, a combined PET and MRI assessment did significantly improve detection sensitivity relative to either modality alone, suggesting potential value in a combined assessment for some tumors.

Keywords

MRI, amino acid PET, tissue clearing, glioblastoma, brain tumor, imaging

Published Open-Access

yes

Recommended Citation

Chen, Peng; Scarpelli, Matthew L; Healey, Debbie R; et al., "MRI and Amino Acid Pet Detection of Whole-Brain Tumor Burden" (2023). Faculty, Staff and Student Publications. 6452.
https://digitalcommons.library.tmc.edu/uthgsbs_docs/6452