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Updated: Jun 6, 2026
On-Site Sampling and Extraction of Brain Tumors for Metabolomics and Lipidomics Analysis
Published on: May 31, 2020
Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy in differentiating glioblastomas from primary cerebral lymphomas and brain
Sanjeev Chawla1, Yu Zhang, Sumei Wang
1Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Objective:
To differentiate glioblastomas, primary cerebral lymphomas (PCLs), and brain metastases using multivoxel proton magnetic resonance (MR) spectroscopic imaging.
Methods:
A total of 56 patients with brain neoplasms underwent MR imaging and proton MR spectroscopic imaging. The data were analyzed from contrast-enhancing and peritumoral regions (PTR). N-acetylaspartate/creatine (Cr), choline (Cho)/Cr, glutamate+glutamine/Cr, myo-inositol/Cr, and lipids+lactate/Cr ratios were computed, and pairwise comparisons between neoplasms were made using Mann-Whitney U tests.
Results:
The PTR demonstrated most significant differences in metabolite ratios. The Cho/Cr ratio in glioblastomas (0.46 [0.01]) was significantly higher than that in metastases (0.38 [0.02], P = 0.01). Significantly elevated Cho/Cr levels were also noted in PCLs (0.48 [0.03]) compared with those in metastases (P = 0.04). In addition, PCLs also demonstrated significantly higher lipids+lactate/Cr levels (11.83 [2.59]) compared with glioblastomas (4.50 [0.59], P = 0.003) and metastases (2.79 [0.33], P = 0.001).
Conclusions:
Proton MR spectroscopic imaging from PTR may assist in the differentiation of glioblastomas, metastases, and PCLs.
