Deuterium metabolic imaging distinguishes metabolic subtypes and detects early treatment response to current standard of care in glioblastoma

The potential for DMI measurements of deuterated glucose metabolism to differentiate between metabolic subtypes in GBM has been demonstrated in patient-derived xenografts in mice. The glycolytic subtype showed increased lactate labelling whereas two oxidative subtypes showed increased glutamate/glutamine (Glx) labelling. There was decreased lactate labelling in a glycolytic subtype and decreased lactate and Glx labelling in an oxidative subtype within 24 h after the completion of standard-of-care chemoradiotherapy, demonstrating that the technique can also be used to detect early treatment response in this tumor type.