Current status of 18F-DOPA PET imaging in the detection of brain tumor recurrence

Considering the intrinsic limits of fluorine-18-dfluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography ((18)F-FDG PET/CT) for diagnosing brain tumors and tumor recurrence, several radiopharmaceuticals have been developed to detect brain tumor recurrence after treatment. Among others, a promising tracer is fluorine-18-desoxyphenylalanine (DOPA), due to its very low rate of physiological distribution in normal brain structures of white and grey matter. The aim of our study was to assess the feasibility of PET/CT with (18)F-DOPA in the detection of brain tumor recurrence after treatment, in comparison with MRI performance and other PET radiopharmaceuticals, currently employed in this field.

The (18)F-DOPA PET/CT seems to be useful in the diagnosis of patients with suspected brain tumor recurrence, because of low signal ratio in normal brain white and grey matter, in particular as compared to (18)F-FDG PET/CT low performance. Related data are presented for other fluorinated amino acid tracers. Magnetic resonance imaging is the gold standard of diagnosis and (18)F-DOPA PET/CT is adjuvant to diagnosis. Further studies are needed to enrich our knowledge about this promising tracer,(18)F-DOPA, especially on its possible role on semi-quantitative measurements in brain tumors.