Amino Acid PET Imaging of Glioma

Abstract

Gliomas are among the most lethal malignancies in the world with dismal outcomes for high-grade tumors. These lesions are difficult to completely characterize with conventional magnetic resonance imaging and amino acid positron emission tomography is a rapidly progressing area of research with widespread clinical use. Amino acid positron emission tomography allows for more accurate glioma characterization compared to traditional imaging techniques including grading of disease, delineation of tumor spread, identification of recurrent disease, and prognosis. While the summarized radiotracers share some diagnostic properties, each also has its own weaknesses and strengths. This article summarizes recent developments and clinical applications of the most widely used amino acid radiotracers. While none of these agents are FDA approved in the United States, they are considered standard of care in Europe and other parts of the world with > 10,000 studies being performed in some centers (Langen et al. in J Neurooncol 120(3):665–666, 2014).