(18)F-fluoro-L-thymidine-PET for the evaluation of primary brain tumours in children: a report of three cases.

Abstract

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. CONCLUSION: 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.