Simultaneous 18F-FDG PET/MRI Assists Diagnosis of a Rare Disease, MELAS

MELAS (mitochondrial encephalomyopathy, lactic acidosis, and stroke-like episodes) is a rare congenital mitochondrial DNA mutation disease. Here, we report a 4-year-old girl, who presented with short stature, mental retardation, and recurrent seizures, underwent simultaneous 18F-FDG PET/MRI examination. An interesting contradiction images were found on bilateral frontal, left temporal, occipital, and parietal lobes, which were with high blood flow shown on 3D-ASL perfusion images, but low uptake of 18F-FDG on PET images. The contradiction of high blood flow and low glucose metabolism gave us a clue to make the diagnosis of MELAS. The final diagnosis was MELAS confirmed by genetic testing.

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