title: Usefulness of thallium-201 single photon emission computed tomography to quantify the malignancy grade of brain tumors.
abstract: Preoperative thallium-201 (201Tl) single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) was used to evaluate the histological malignancy in 24 patients with brain tumors. A corrected L/E ratio was calculated based on the ratio of thallium uptake in the tumor on early images versus the tumor in the delayed images (L/E ratio) corrected for thallium uptake in the contralateral cerebral hemisphere. The corrected L/E ratio in benign brain tumors was 0.79 +/- 0.23, significantly different to 1.32 +/- 0.25 in high grade astrocytomas (p < 0.01) and 1.19 +/- 0.05 in metastatic brain tumors (p < 0.01), respectively. The corrected L/E ratio in low grade astrocytomas was 0.64 +/- 0.32, significantly lower than that in high grade astrocytomas (p < 0.01) and metastatic brain tumors (p < 0.05). There was one false positive result among 24 patients using a threshold of 1.0 to separate malignant and benign tumors. 201Tl SPECT using the corrected L/E ratio is effective for determining the malignant viability of tumors.
authors: Department of Neurological Surgery, Ehime University School of Medicine.
authors: K
authors: K
authors: Igase
authors: Y
authors: Y
authors: Oka
authors: S
authors: S
authors: Ohta
authors: Y
authors: Y
authors: Murakami
authors: Y
authors: Y
authors: Kumon
authors: S
authors: S
authors: Sakaki
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001254:Astrocytoma / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013794:Thallium Radioisotopes; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon
chemical_list: D013794:Thallium Radioisotopes