The Role of Amide Proton Transfer Imaging in Brain Tumor Management

Amide Proton Transfer Weighted (APTw) imaging is an emerging technique that provides crucial insights about tumor biology.

This narrative clinical review summarizes the physics and implementation of APTw imaging and critically evaluates its role in brain tumor management, with emphasis on adult diffuse gliomas. Relationship with other routine clinical sequences, aspects of standardization and reproducibility, key limitations, and future directions are also discussed.

Evidence supports potential value for tumor grading, biopsy targeting, molecular characterization, assessment of infiltrative tumor, and differentiation of tumor progression from treatment-related change. However, wider clinical translation will require harmonized acquisition and processing, cross-vendor validation, and prospective multicenter studies with standardized reference standards.