Is Higher Lactate an Indicator of Tumor Metastatic Risk? A Pilot MRS Study Using Hyperpolarized 13C-Pyruvate

The result indicates that the less metastatic breast tumors may produce more lactate than the highly metastatic ones from the injected 13C-pyruvate and supports the notion that breast tumor metastatic risk is not necessarily associated with the high levels of glycolysis and lactate production. More studies are needed to confirm whether and how much the measured apparent rate constants are affected by the membrane transporter activity and whether they are primarily determined by the LDH activity.