Integrated MR imaging/P-31 MR spectroscopy studies of large pediatric brain tumors

The authors studied 14 children with brain tumors; the patient's ages ranged from 1 week to 16 years. All patients underwent surgical excision or biopsy within 1 week of MR imaging, and histologic confirmation was obtained. The authors used either surface coil localization or depth-resolved surface-coil spectroscopic (DRESS) localization in the P-31 MR spectroscopic portion of the study. Tumor volumes were estimated from the MR images and ranged between 10 and 585 cm3 (median size, 147 cm3). The pooled analysis indicates that the phosphocreatine/inorganic phosphate (PCr/Pi) ratio was lower in malignant tumors (mean, 0.86 ± 0.15) than in benign tumors (mean, 2.0 ± 0.37) in these patients