[18F]Fluorodeoxyglucose scintigraphy in diagnosis and follow up of treatment in advanced breast cancer

Abstract

Seventeen patients with advanced breast cancer were imaged with a specially collimated gamma camera to study tumor uptake of 2-[18F]-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (FDG) before and during therapy. Fourteen patients (82%) showed increased FDG accumulation in metastatic tumors, 6/8 (75%) of axillary, supra or infraclavicular metastatic lymph nodes were detectable. In one of these cases, FDG imaging was the first method to identify axillary metastasis causing nerve compression. Also, pulmonary and liver metastases could be imaged with FDG; both in two patients. The intra individual variability in uptake was considerable in bone metastases, and some lesions remained FDG negative: 99mTc-DPD was superior in detecting bone disease. Bone metastases of the osteolytic or mixed type were better visualized than sclerotic ones. Ten patients were reimaged later to assess the effect of therapy on FDG uptake. Increased uptake was associated with clinical progression, while unchanged or diminished uptake did not predict the course of disease as reliably. This study indicates that FDG can be used to image breast cancer metastases. FDG may be valuable in monitoring treatment response, but positron emission tomography (PET) would probably be more appropriate than planar imaging for this purpose.

Improving Specificity of Breast MRI Using Prone PET and Fused MRI and PET 3D Volume Datasets

“…However, 18 F-FDG PET could be indicated for preoperative staging and primary diagnosis (17,18,(20)(21)(22)(23)(24). Breast cancer detection is still principally based on mammography, which misses about 10% of breast carcinomas (25)(26)(27)(28) because of dense breast tissue.…”

Oncological applications of positron emission tomography with fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose

“…Several groups have reported a high degree of success in detecting the primary tumour. Although the first feasibility studies included only small numbers of patients with large tumours, larger more representative series have now been reported [245][246][247][248]. Using a whole-body imaging technique, Hoh et al [83] detected 15/17 primary breast carcinomas.…”

Determination of Metastatic Axillary Lymph Node in Breast Cancer: Differentiation with Dynamic MRI Examination by Signal Intensity-Time Curves

“…By this method, however, metastatic involvement of lymph MRI -spectroscopy 82 100 High sensitivity/specificity except for choline negative in-situ cancers [27] MRI (USPIO) 80 -90 90 -100 Nanotechnology product, high cost and low availability [22] PET imaging 96 100 Radiation exposure, high cost, cannot be used for screening in every patient. Other radionuclide techniques are less sensitive than PET imaging [1,28,29] Sonography guided FNAB 31 -63 95 -100…”