THERAPY RESPONSE IN NUCLEAR MEDICINE
Guest Editor: Bombardieri E. 

The Quarterly Journal of Nuclear Medicine 2003 March;47(1):41-5

Copyright © 2009 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Assessment of therapy response by FDG PET in pediatric patients

Franzius C., Schober O.

Department of Nuclear Medicine, Münster University, Münster, Germany

­Little is ­known ­about the clin­ical ­value of FDG PET for ­assessing treat­ment ­response in pedi­atric ­oncology. ­After system­atic ­review of lit­er­a­ture, the ­very few pub­li­ca­tions con­cerning ­response con­trol in pedi­atric ­oncology ­using FDG PET are sum­mar­ized. ­There ­were ­only 4 ­studies con­cerning FDG PET in the assess­ment of ­therapy ­response in pedi­atric ­patients. ­None of the pub­li­ca­tions ful­filled the require­ments for ­high ­quality ­studies ­because of the ­small ­number of ­patients ­studied. The clin­ical ­value of FDG PET in the assess­ment of ­therapy ­response in pedi­atric ­oncology is ­likely in ­osseous sar­comas and pos­sibly in ­high-­grade ­brain ­tumors. In ­other pedi­atric ­tumor ­entities ­such as lym­phomas, ­soft-­tissue sar­comas, ­germ ­cell ­tumors, or neu­ro­blas­tomas, the clin­ical use­ful­ness of FDG PET can ­either be ­assumed anal­o­gous to ­adults, or can be ­assumed ­from ­staging ­studies, or is ­still ­unknown. ­There is a ­need for ­large, system­atic ­studies eval­u­ating FDG PET in ­therapy mon­i­toring, but ­also in ­grading, ­staging, and in the diag­nosis of recur­rences in pedi­atric malig­nan­cies.