Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare endocrine malignancy, often with an unfavorable prognosis. Here we summarize the knowledge about diagnosis, epidemiology, pathophysiology, and therapy of ACC. Over recent years, multidisciplinary clinics have formed and the first international treatment trials have been conducted. This review focuses on evidence gained from recent basic science and clinical research and provides perspectives from the experience of a large multidisciplinary clinic dedicated to the care of patients with ACC.
In combination with FDG PET/CT, Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT can noninvasively assess tumor heterogeneity, especially in G2 and G3 NETs, for personalized management of patients.
The Tumor, Node, Metastasis (TNM) staging system, adopted by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) and the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC), has been recently revised, with the new 8th edition of the staging manual being published in January 2017. This edition has few but important evidence-based changes to the TNM staging system used for lung cancer. Radiologists should be aware of the updated classification system to accurately provide staging information to oncologists and oncosurgeons. In this article, we discuss the rationale, illustrate the changes with relevance to Radiology, and review the clinical implications of the 8th edition of the UICC/AJCC TNM staging system with regards to lung cancer.
The vessels supplying the lungs include the pulmonary arteries, pulmonary veins, and bronchial arteries. The segmental and sub segmental pulmonary arteries parallel the bronchi and are named according to the bronchopulmonary segments they supply. There are however considerable anatomic variations, particularly in the upper lobes with variations in number or presence of accessory arteries from adjacent segments. The subsegmental pulmonary vein branches, run within interlobular septa and do not parallel the segmental or sub segmental pulmonary artery branches and bronchi. They converge to form right and left superior and inferior pulmonary veins which drain into the left atrium. Knowledge of normal and variant anatomy on cross-sectional and angiographic images is essential for accurate diagnosis of vascular pathology and aids planning of interventional procedures.
We present examples of extraosseous radiotracer uptake seen on (99m)Tc-MDP bone scans in which either SPECT with integrated CT or correlative imaging improved the study's interpretation.
PET/CT with (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) or using different radiocompounds has proven accuracy for detection of adrenal metastases in patients undergoing cancer staging. It can assist the diagnostic work-up in oncology patients by identifying distant metastases to the adrenal(s) and defining oligometastatic disease that may benefit from targeted intervention. In patients with incidentally discovered adrenal nodules, so-called adrenal "incidentaloma" FDG PET/CT is emerging as a useful test to distinguish benign from malignant etiology. Current published evidence suggests a role for FDG PET/CT in assessing the malignant potential of an adrenal lesion that has been 'indeterminately' categorized with unenhanced CT, adrenal protocol contrast-enhanced CT, or chemical-shift MRI. FDG PET/CT could be used to stratify patients with higher risk of malignancy for surgical intervention, while recommending surveillance for adrenal masses with low malignant potential. There are caveats for interpretation of the metabolic activity of an adrenal nodule on PET/CT that may lead to false-positive and false-negative interpretation. Adrenal lesions represent a wide spectrum of etiologies, and the typical appearances on PET/CT are still being described, therefore our goal was to summarize the current diagnostic strategies for evaluation of adrenal lesions and present metabolic and anatomic appearances of common and uncommon adrenal lesions. In spite of the emerging role of PET/CT to differentiate benign from malignant adrenal mass, especially in difficult cases, it should be emphasized that PET/CT is not needed for most patients and that many diagnostic problems can be resolved by CT and/or MR imaging.
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