Journal Article

FZJ-2017-03152

http://join2-wiki.gsi.de/foswiki/pub/Main/Artwork/join2_logo100x88.png Amino acid PET in neuro-oncology: applications in the clinic

Galldiks, N. (Corresponding author)FZJ* ; Langen, K.-J.FZJ*

2017
Taylor & Francis Abingdon, Oxon

This record in other databases:  

Please use a persistent id in citations: doi:10.1080/14737140.2017.1302799

Abstract: For more than three decades, radiolabeled amino acids have been used in the field of neuro-oncology. The most experience for this class of positron emission tomography (PET) tracers has been gained with 11C-methyl-l-methionine (MET). MET is labeled with the positron-emitting isotope carbon-11, which has a short half-life of 20 min. Thus, the use of MET is restricted to PET centers with an on-site cyclotron unit. This prompted the development of amino acid tracers labeled with positron emitters that have longer half-lives. More recently, O-(2-[18F]fluoroethyl)-l-tyrosine (FET) was developed and is a 18F-labeled amino acid tracer with a half-life of 110 min, resulting in a higher practicability compared to MET. The use of FET has grown rapidly in recent years, especially in Western Europe, and has led to a replacement of MET by the more convenient FET. The improved availability has led to several thousand FET PET scans being performed in some centers. Furthermore, clinical results with PET using FET and MET seem to be comparable [1 Grosu AL, Astner ST, Riedel E, et al. An interindividual comparison of O-(2- [(18)F]fluoroethyl)-L-tyrosine (FET)- and L-[methyl-(11)C]methionine (MET)-PET in patients with brain gliomas and metastases. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2011;81(4):1049–1058.[CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]]. The 18F-labeled amino acid analogue 3,4-dihydroxy-6-[18F]-fluoro-l-phenylalanine (FDOPA) – primarily developed to evaluate dopamine synthesis in patients with movement disorders – is also increasingly being used for brain tumor imaging [2 Herrmann K, Czernin J, Cloughesy T, et al. Comparison of visual and semiquantitative analysis of 18F-FDOPA-PET/CT for recurrence detection in glioblastoma patients. Neuro Oncol. 2014;16(4):603–609.[CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]]. However, in the USA, the standard tracer for tumor imaging 18F-2-fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose (FDG) PET is still frequently used in brain tumor patients, although the evaluation of brain tumors using FDG is difficult because levels of glucose metabolism in healthy brain parenchyma are usually high. This leads to a poor tumor-to-background contrast compared with amino acid tracers [3 Albert NL, Weller M, Suchorska B, et al. Response assessment in neuro-oncology working group and European Association for Neuro-Oncology recommendations for the clinical use of PET imaging in gliomas. Neuro Oncol. 2016;18(9):1199–1208.[CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]].

---

Contributing Institute(s):

1. Kognitive Neurowissenschaften (INM-3)
2. Physik der Medizinischen Bildgebung (INM-4)
3. JARA-BRAIN (JARA-BRAIN)

Research Program(s):

1. 573 - Neuroimaging (POF3-573) (POF3-573)

Appears in the scientific report 2017

---

Database coverage:
; Current Contents - Clinical Medicine ; IF < 5 ; JCR ; NCBI Molecular Biology Database ; No Authors Fulltext ; SCOPUS ; Science Citation Index Expanded ; Thomson Reuters Master Journal List ; Web of Science Core Collection

---