Magnetic resonance spectroscopy detection of high lipid levels in intraaxial tumors without central necrosis: a characteristic of malignant lymphoma.

OBJECT The differentiation of malignant lymphomas from gliomas or malignant gliomas by conventional MRI can be difficult. The authors studied Gd-enhanced MR images to obtain a differential diagnosis between malignant lymphomas and gliomas without central necrosis or cystic changes and investigated the diagnostic value of single-voxel proton MR spectroscopy (1H-MRS) using different parameters, including lipid levels. METHODS This was a retrospective study of patients with primary malignant CNS lymphoma (n = 17) and glioma (n = 122 [Grades I, II, III, and IV in 10, 30, 33, and 49 patients, respectively]) who were treated between 2007 and 2013. The authors focused on 15 patients with homogeneously enhanced primary malignant CNS lymphomas and 7 homogeneously enhanced gliomas. Images of all the included tumors were acquired with 1H-MRS at 3 T, and the diagnoses were histologically confirmed. RESULTS Using a short echo time 1H-MRS, large lipid peaks were observed in all 17 patients with a malignant lymphoma, in...