Article Text
Abstract
Background: Current glioma grading schemes are limited by subjective histological criteria. Imidazoline I2 receptors are principally expressed on glial cells.
Objective: To investigate the feasibility of using the measurement of imidazoline I2 receptor expression to differentiate glial tumours from other types of brain tumours and for grading the different gliomas.
Methods: The specific binding of [3H]idazoxan to imidazoline I2 receptors was measured in homogenates from human gliomas of different grades.
Results: The density of imidazoline I2 receptors was significantly greater in the three types of malignant glial tumours than in postmortem control brain or non-glial tumours. The increase in density correlated with the malignancy grade of the gliomas. No significant differences in affinity values were observed.
Conclusion: These results suggest that the density of imidazoline I2 receptors may be a useful radioligand parameter for the differentiation of glial tumours from other types of brain tumours and for grading the different gliomas.
- imidazoline I2 receptors
- human brain
- gliomas
- GFAP, glial fibrillary acidic protein
- I2-IR, I2 imidazoline receptor
- i.p., intraperitoneally
- PET, positron emission tomography
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Footnotes
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Competing interests: none declared