ORIGINAL ARTICLES  THORACIC SECTION 

The Journal of Cardiovascular Surgery 2001 June;42(3):403-10

Copyright © 2009 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Early experience with PET scanning in thoracic tumours

Kutlu C. A., Pastorino U., Maisey M., Goldstraw P.

From the Department of Thoracic Surgery Royal Brompton Hospital *Clinical PET Centre, Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Hospital London, UK

Background. Positron emission tomography (­PET) ­scan is an imag­ing tech­nique ­which ­relies on meta­bol­ic prop­er­ties of ­the ­lesions. In ­this ­study, we eval­u­at­ed ­the poten­tial con­tri­bu­tion of ­PET ­for tho­rac­ic malig­nan­cy in a con­sec­u­tive ­series of ­patients pre­sent­ing ­with mul­ti­ple ­lesions or equiv­ocal diag­no­sis.
Methods. ­PET ­with 2-18 F flu­o­rod­e­ox­y­glu­cose (­FDG) ­was car­ried ­out in 41 ­patients. The diag­no­sis ­was pri­mary intra­tho­rac­ic malig­nan­cy in 22 (Group 1). On rou­tine stag­ing ­using CT ­scan we ­found 29 addi­tion­al ­lesions ­and ­assessed ­these ­using ­PET ­scan. ­PET ­was per­formed to eval­u­ate ­the num­ber of met­a­stat­ic ­lesions in ­the ­lung in 11 (Group 2), to char­ac­ter­ise undi­ag­nosed pathol­o­gy in ­the ­chest in 4 (­Group 3), to ­search clin­i­cal­ly sus­pi­cious extrath­o­rac­ic ­spread in 4 ­patients ­with ­known intra­tho­rac­ic malig­nan­cy.
Results. In ­Group 1, ­the sen­si­tiv­ity ­and spec­i­fic­ity of ­PET ­was 81.2% ­and 92.3%. The accu­ra­cy of ­PET in ­the con­fir­ma­tion of met­a­stat­ic dis­ease to ­the ­chest ­was 73%. ­PET ­was false­ly pos­i­tive in a ­patient ­with chron­ic inflam­ma­to­ry dis­ease in ­Group 3 ­and high­ly accu­rate to char­ac­ter­ise ­unknown pathol­o­gy in ­Group 4.
Conclusions. Even ­though infec­tion ­may ­cause ­false pos­i­tive ­results, ­PET is a use­ful imag­ing tech­nique ­for ­the eval­u­a­tion of ­patients ­with tho­rac­ic ­tumours.