Effects of reactive oxygen species on metabolism monitored by longitudinal 1H single voxel MRS follow-up in patients with mitochondrial disease or cerebral tumors

Free radicals, or Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS), have an effect on energy and glycolytic metabolism, mitochondrial function, lipid metabolism, necrosis and apoptosis, cell proliferation, and infiltration. These changes could be monitored longitudinally (every 4 months over 6 years) in humans with glial brain tumors (low and high grade) after therapy, using conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and spectroscopy (MRS) and MR perfusion. Some examples of early clinical data from longitudinal follow-up monitoring in humans of energy and glycolytic metabolism, lipid metabolism, necrosis, proliferation, and infiltration measured by conventional MRI, MRS and perfusion, and positron emission tomography (PET) are shown in glial brain tumors after therapy. Despite the difficulty, the variability and unknown factors, these repeated measurements give us a better insight into the nature of the different processes, tumor progression and therapeutic response.