RESUMO
OBJECTIVE: Gliomatosis cerebri is a rare brain tumor with a short survival time; for this reason, it is difficult to establish the degree of aggressivity in vivo. The MR spectroscopic findings on this tumor often do not agree with choline level. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether MR spectroscopy can be used to measure tumor choline levels and whether the findings give useful information about tumor growth rate and patient survival time. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: We performed MRI and 1H MR spectroscopic studies on seven treatment-naive patients with gliomatosis cerebri and on 16 healthy volunteers. We then analyzed the association between survival time and levels of choline (Cho) and N-acetyl aspartate (NAA) normalized to creatine (Cr). RESULTS: The results showed a statistically significant (p = 0.05) inverse relation between Cho/Cr ratio and survival time. In addition, NAA/Cr ratio was significantly lower in the patient group than in the control group (p = 0.001). CONCLUSION: Cho/Cr ratio measured with MR spectroscopy seems to be related to survival time, possibly explaining the inconsistent findings previously reported for this parameter.