Comparison between MR Perfusion and 18F-FDG PET in Differentiating Tumor Recurrence from Nonneoplastic Contrast-enhancing Tissue

OBJECTIVE: Comparison of the accuracy of MR perfusion and 18-FDG-PET for differentiating tumor progression from nonneoplastic contrast-enhancing tissue. METHODS AND MATERIALS: Retrospective review of MR perfusion and 18-FDG-PET in 23 cases of primary brain tumors (17 high grade and 6 low grade glial neoplasms) and 5 cases of metastatic lesions with enhancing lesions on post-treatment MRI was performed. The accuracy of MR perfusion versus 18-FDG-PET for distinguishing between nonneoplastic contrast-enhancing tissue and tumor recurrence was assessed. RESULTS: Both CBV (p<0.004) and SUV (p<0.02) are higher in recurrent tumors than necrosis. MR perfusion has an accuracy of 94.5% for differentiating between tumor recurrence and necrosis, while 18-FDG-PET has an accuracy of 85.1% for differentiating between tumor recurrence and nonneoplastic contrast-enhancing tissue. CONCLUSION: Overall, recurrent tumor demonstrates significantly higher CBV and SUV than nonneoplastic contrast-enhancing tissue. However, MR perfusion appears to be more accurate than FDG PET for distinguishing the two entities.