Nigel Paul Davies1,2, Martin Wilson1,3, Kal Natarajan1,2, Yu Sun1,3, Shaheen Lateef3, Lesley MacPherson3, Marie-Anne Brundler3, Theodorus N. Arvanitis3,4, Richard G. Grundy5, Andrew Charles Peet1,3
1Cancer Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK; 2Imaging & Medical Physics, University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, Birmingham, UK; 3Birmingham Children's Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Birmingham, UK; 4School of Electronic, Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK; 5Children's Brain Tumour Research Centre, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
MRS provides a unique opportunity to study the metabolism of brain tumours non-invasively. Glycine is thought to be relevant in the metabolism of malignant brain tumours, but it is difficult to distinguish at low field from myo-inositol at around 3.6 ppm. LCModel analysis of short and long TE single-voxel MRS employing simulated basis sets has been used to quantify glycine in 48 childhood brain tumours in comparison with HR-MAS studies of biopsy samples. In vivo, glycine was found in medulloblastomas and glioblastomas but not in low grade astrocytomas, consistent with previous studies and in agreement with the HR-MAS results.