Application of a kinetic model on the methionine accumulation in intracranial tumours studied with positron emission tomography.

Eleven patients were studied with positron emission tomography (PET) using 11C-methionine. They all had low-grade astrocytomas (Kernohan grade II). The PET studies were analyzed with a metabolic model to obtain values for the influx, the accumulation rate and the partition coefficient of methionine in normal and tumourous tissue. Seven of the tumours showed an increased accumulation of methionine as compared with normal tissue on the static PET scans and also had higher values as to the kinetic parameters. Four tumours had a methionine accumulation equal to or lower than that of normal tissue and the kinetic parameters were also lower. Application of the kinetic model did not aid significantly in the delineation of the tumours. There was a correlation between the three parameters indicating an adaptation of the transport of methionine to the regional metabolic demand. The accumulation rate for normal cortical tissue was 0.49 nmol/g/min, the influx 0.97 nmol/ml and the partition coefficient 0.45 ml/g. These values are considerably higher than those previously reported. The differences might be attributed to differences in the corrections introduced for i.a. the occurrence of labelled metabolites in serum. With the use of a kinetic model, more information about the tracer is utilized and gained compared with the previously used graphic approach.