Arabhi C. Nagasunder1, Mikhail Laskov2,
Albert Joseph2, Ashok Panigrahy1,3, Girish Dhall2,
Jonathan L. Finlay2, Ignacio Gonzalez-Gomez4, Mark D.
Krieger5, Marvin D. Nelson1, Stefan Bluml1,6
1Department of Radiology, Childrens
Hospital Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States; 2Childrens
Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases, Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, Los
Angeles, CA, United States; 3Department of Radiology, Childrens
Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, Pittsburgh, PA, United States; 4Department
of Neuropathology, Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United
States; 5Department of Neurosurgery, Childrens Hospital Los
Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States; 6Rudi Schulte Research
Institue, Santa Barbara, CA, United States
Pediatric
low-grade gliomas can either progress to a high-grade lesion or remain
dormant for long periods of time.
Currently, there is a need to identify markers that would allow
pediatric neuro-oncologists to predict tumor progression. Our goal was to
determine whether aggressive pediatric low-grade II astrocytoma have
metabolic features that distinguishes them from stable grade II astrocytoma
using in vivo MR Spectroscopy. We found that elevated citrate and low NAA may
predict malignant progression of low-grade astrocytomas.