COMPARISON OF EFFECTS OF 18F-FDG PET-CT AND MRI IN IDENTIFYING AND GRADING GLIOMAS

Abstract

Glioma is the most common type of brain tumor. Malignant gliomas tend to have an increasinglyhigher incidence and are difficult to treat. Therefore, an accurate diagnosis of the grade of glioma beforesurgery is very important for planning surgery and determining prognosis. To compare the valuesof 18F-deoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computer tomography (18F-FDG PET-CT) andmagnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for identifying and grading gliomas, we selected 70 patients whowere diagnosed as having a primary glioma or suspected glioma at the People’s Hospital of Liaochengin Shandong, China, and divided them into an observation group, which was examined by 18F-FDGPET-CT and a control group, which was examined by MRI. Image analysis, visual semi-quantitativeanalysis and qualitative analysis, follow-up and pathological results of the two groups were compared.Specificity, accuracy and sensitivity of brain MRI and PET-CT in grading the gliomas were calculated,and the results obtained were processed by Chi-squared test. Standard uptake value (SUV), SUVcorrectand L/WM (SUVmax ratio of a lesion to normal white matters in the opposite side) of FDG in the differentgrades of glioma were analyzed by single-factor variance analysis. Postoperative pathological detectionconfirmed 47 cases of glioma; the sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of PET-CT in grading gliomawere all higher than those of MRI (P<0.05); the correlation between SUV and glioma grade, betweenSUVcorrect and glioma grade, and between L/WM and glioma had significant difference (P<0.05). Thus, itwas concluded that 18F-FDG PET-CT performs better in diagnosing gliomas than MRI and is also moresuitable for identifing different grades of glioma.