Objective
To evaluate whether the combination of magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) and
11
C-methionine positron emission tomography (
11
C-MET PET) could increase accurate diagnostic sensitivity for non-enhancing supratentorial gliomas.
Materials and Methods
Between February 2012 and December 2017, 109 patients with non-enhanced supratentorial lesions on contrast-enhanced MRI were enrolled. Each patient underwent MRS and
11
C-MET PET before treatment. A lesion was considered to be a glioma when either the MRS or
11
C-MET PET results reached the diagnostic threshold. The radiological diagnosis was compared with the pathological diagnosis or medical diagnostic criteria.
Results
The sensitivity and specificity were 60.0% and 50.0% for MRS and 75.8% and 50.0% for
11
C-MET PET, respectively. Upon combining the two modalities, the sensitivity and specificity of the imaging-based diagnosis prior to surgery reached 89.5% and 42.9%, respectively. Statistically significant differences in the sensitivities were observed between the combined and individual approaches (MRS alone, 89.5% vs. 60.0%,
p
< 0.001;
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C-MET PET alone, 89.5% vs. 75.8%,
p
= 0.001). However, no significant differences in specificity were observed between the combined and individual modalities.
Conclusion
The combination of MRS and
11
C-MET PET findings significantly increases accurate diagnostic sensitivity for non-enhancing supratentorial gliomas without significantly lowering the specificity. This finding suggests the potential of the combined MRS and
11
C-MET PET approach in clinical applications.
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