Language mapping in pretreatment planning of patients with cerebral arteriovenous malformation - A PET study

Purpose: Three patients who had cerebral arteriovenous malformations underw ent language mapping by positron emission tomography (PET) to identify the dominant hemisphere for language and the spatial relation of lesions to lan guage areas. Methods: Mapping was performed to assess the risk that surgery could cause neurologic deficits and to plan other therapeutic strategies. Results: The information obtained by PET language mapping changed the cours e of management for these patients. Two patients were treated with stereota ctic radiosurgery and one patient with surgical resection. Conclusions: PET imaging can be a valuable noninvasive tool for mapping the functional cortex and for preoperative planning of different treatment opt ions in patients with arteriovenous malformations.