ORIGINAL ARTICLE   

The Quarterly Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging 2021 March;65(1):79-87

DOI: 10.23736/S1824-4785.19.03138-8

Copyright © 2019 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Diagnostic value of positron-emission tomography textural indices for malignancy of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose-avid adrenal lesions

Philippe THUILLIER ^{1, 2} ✉, David BOURHIS ^{2, 3}, Ulrike SCHICK ⁴, Zarrin ALAVI ⁵, Catherine GUEZENNEC ^{2, 3}, Philippe ROBIN ^{2, 3}, Véronique KERLAN ^{1, 2}, Pierre-Yve SALAUN ^{2, 3}, Ronan ABGRAL ^{2, 3}

¹ Department of Endocrinology, University Hospital of Brest, Brest, France; ² EA GETBO 3878, University Hospital of Brest, Brest, France; ³ Department of Nuclear Medicine, University Hospital of Brest, Brest, France; ⁴ Department of Radiotherapy, University Hospital of Brest, Brest, France; ⁵ EA-3878, INSERM CIC-1412 Medical University Hospital of Brest, Brest, France

BACKGROUND: PET Textural indices could have an add-on diagnostic value for diagnosis of malignancy in patients with FDG-avid adrenal lesions.
METHODS: Consecutive patients referred for a FDG-PET/CT to our nuclear medicine department from June 2012 to June 2017 were retrospectively screened. Inclusion criteria were: patients with a FDG-avid adrenal lesion (uptake≥liver background); malignant/benign lesion confirmed histologically or with follow-up imaging examination. Pheochromocytomas were not included in the analysis. For each adrenal lesion, 5 quantitative PET parameters (SUVmax, MTV, TLG, TLRmax and TLRmean) were calculated. Thirty-seven textural indices were extracted using LIFEx software^®. Diagnostic performance to determine malignancy was assessed with a ROC analysis. Parameters with a significantly AUC>0.5 were selected and groups of highly correlated (r>0.8) parameters were created. A scoring system combining PET and textural indices was examined.
RESULTS: PET textural indices were calculated for 53 lesions (37 malignant, 16 benign). Three PET metabolic parameters (SUVmax, TLRmax, TLRmean) and 13 textural indices had an AUC>0.5. Seven groups of highly correlated parameters (r>0.8) were extracted. For PET parameters, SUVmax had the best AUC (0.89 95% CI [0.79-0.98]; cut-off=7.0). For textural indices, ZLNU had the best AUC (0.87 95% CI [0.78-0.96]; cut-off=34.7) and specificity of 100%. Three scores combining the best four textural indices alone (ContrastGLCM, LRHGE, SZE and ZLNU) or with one PET parameters (SUVmax, TLRmax) were developed but did not increase the diagnostic performance (AUC≤0.89). ZLNU was the best parameter to distinguish primary adrenal cancer from adrenal metastases in malignant lesions (P<0.001).
CONCLUSIONS: Our study highlighted excellent diagnostic performance of several PET textural indices comparable to that of PET metabolic parameters. However, our results did not find any additional diagnostic value of textural indices when combined with metabolic parameters.

KEY WORDS: Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; Positron emission tomography computed tomography; Adrenocortical adenoma