Thallium-201 SPECT studies were done on 32 patients with brain tumors. : 20 patients with glioms, 3 patients with meningiomas, 2 patients with metastasis, 2 patients with pineal tumors, 1 patient each with germinoma, neurinoma, neurocytoma, and 2
postradiation patients.
A 201Tl index was based on the ratio of thallium uptake tumor versus the homologous contralateral brain. It was calculated and compared with tumor histology.
There was a substantial uptake of 201Tl in high grade gliomas with not uptake in low grade glioma. Meningiomas and metastatic tumors show hot uptake, revealing that 201Tl uptake is not exclusive to high grade gliomas.
In conclusion, 201Tl SPECT could distinguish the benign and malignancy, and seems to be useful in the follow-up after treatment, to predict low-or high-grade lesions.
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