Relationship Between Cerebral Glucose Metabolic Disorder and Malignant Tumor Type

Abstract

Aim: To study whether cerebral glucose metabolic disorder in malignant tumor patients without cerebral diseases is related to the site of tumor by using the 18F-deoxyglucose (FDG) PET/CT brain imaging technology. Methods: 22 patients with primary liver cancer and 20 patients with pancreatic cancer were subjected to general physical examinations by 18F-FDG positron emission tomography (PET). A statistical parametric mapping (SPM) software was adopted to analyze the information about cerebral resting glucose metabolism retrospectively, and to compare with the 22 healthy subjects with matched ages and genders. Results: Both the primary liver cancer and pancreatic cancer patients underwent metabolic reduction in both sides of the frontal and temporal areas, but the range and voxel involved in the latter were more extensive than those in the former, especially in the prefrontal cortex. The elevated metabolic areas in pancreatic cancer, which were much wider than those in liver cancer, were mainly located on both sides of the hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex and posterior cingulate cortex, and extensively increased glucose metabolism was discerned in cerebellum. The areas of the latter were mainly distributed in the posterior cingulate cortex. Conclusion: Wide areas of glucose metabolic disorder existed in the patients with malignant tumors without cerebral metastasis, the distribution of which is related to the tumor type.