Consequences of inflammation for imaging diagnosis:
differentiating between tumors and inflammatory lesions
Conventional neuroradiological techniques do not always allow a
differentiation between radiation necrosis and GBM recurrence, given
that both recurrent tumors and necrosis (pseudoprogressions) may appear
as similar lesions in MRI protocols such as T2- and gadolinium-enhanced
T1-weighted imaging, with an increase in contrast enhancement and the
image of a mass [31, 37-42]. PET imaging using18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG-PET), in turn, can be
useful in differentiating radiation-induced lesions from recurrent GBM
[31, 43]. However, with this method false-positive and
false-negative PET scan results can lead to low sensitivity and pose a
severe limitation [44].