Amino acid PET monitoring in gliomas

Positron emission tomography (PET) with radiolabelled amino acids provides information on the behaviour of gliomas with and without blood–brain barrier (BBB) disruption. This is of importance in several clinical conditions and significantly complements findings which remain unresolved by standard MRI alone. In low-grade gliomas, amino acid PET allows early response assessment during chemotherapy which can be used to individually tailor chemotherapy duration. In high-grade gliomas, it enables the differentiation of treatment-related changes from tumor progression during cytotoxic therapy, and to identify treatment failure early during anti-angiogenic therapies. Previous studies indicate that these informations have impact on cost-effectiveness. As most of the current data are obtained from smaller retrospective studies, prospective validation is required.