(18)F-fluoro-L-thymidine-PET for the evaluation of primary brain tumours in children: a report of three cases.
BACKGROUND
F-fluoro-L-thymidine (FLT) has been shown to be a useful PET tracer in the evaluation of brain tumours in adults. No studies of this modality in children with brain tumours, however, have been published.


OBJECTIVE
In this report three children with brain tumours are presented in which FLT-PET was used for different diagnostic purposes, in addition to imaging with MRI and F-fluorodeoxyglucose-PET. The first patient showed that FLT-PET could be helpful in differentiating between infection and malignancy. In the second patient FLT-PET was used for differentiating recurrent disease from radiotherapy effects. In the third patient, in which biopsy was not possible, FLT-PET was used for the characterization of the tumour.


CONCLUSIONS
These patients show that FLT-PET might be a useful modality in different stages of the evaluation of primary brain tumours in children. However, further research to determine the clinical value, relative to MRI and fluorodeoxyglucose-PET, is required before routine implementation of FLT-PET.
Gilles
Rozemarie
R
Department of Nuclear Medicine, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, PO Box 9101, Nijmegen 6500HB, The Netherlands. R.Gilles@nucmed.umcn.nl
Vogel
Wouter V
WV
Gidding
Corrie E M
CE
Janssens
Geert O R J
GO
van der Vliet
Ton M
TM
Oyen
Wim J G
WJ
D000293:Adolescent; D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D015224:Dideoxynucleosides; D005260:Female; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography
D015224:Dideoxynucleosides; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; C002854:alovudine