MRI & PET Imaging in Malignant Brain Tumors(<SPECIAL ISSUE>Pathology and Treatment of Malignant Brain Tumors)

Abstract

We review several reports on the preoperative diagnosis of malignant brain tumors by MRI or PET and present our imaging findings on this clinical entity. We document the usefulness of diffusion- and per fusion-weighted MRI and of FDG- and MET-PET scans. These imaging findings are useful not only for the diagnosis of malignant brain tumors but also for the identification of the biological characteristics of the tumor cells. We found that DWI, PWI and FDG- or MET-PET are important tools for the diagnosis of malignant brain tumors such as gliomas, malignant lymphomas, and metastatic brain tumors.