The aim of the present study is to evaluate the relationship between the immunohistochemical and histopathological prognostic factors and the metabolic fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computerized tomography (PET/CT) parameters in breast cancer. A total of 94 female patients diagnosed with primary breast cancer (median age: 54.5 years, 94 lesions with size >15 mm) who underwent PET/CT imaging before any treatment were enrolled to this retrospective study. Maximum and average standardized uptake values (SUVmax and SUVavg), metabolic tumor volume (MTV), total lesion glycolysis (TLG), and tumor/liver uptake ratio (TLR) of the primary tumors were calculated and compared between various histopathological and immunohistochemical prognostic factor groups. All metabolic parameters were associated with clinical T stage, metabolic M stage, and nuclear grade. The MTV, TLG, and TLR were significantly higher in patients with suspected lymph node metastasis. There were significant differences according to estrogen receptor and human epidermal growth factor-2 status in the metabolic values other than MTV. In case of progesterone receptor, there were significant differences in the metabolic characteristics except for the MTV and TLG values. The Ki-67 labeling index was moderately correlated with SUVmax, SUVavg, and TLR. All metabolic characteristics except MTV were significantly higher in triple negative breast cancer compared with the other molecular subtypes. The results of the present study suggest that the TLG and TLR values have stronger associations with several prognostic factors in breast cancer (BC) compared with other metabolic parameters.

Purpose In our study, tumor heterogeneity was evaluated using the parameters skewness and kurtosis on pretreatment Ga-68 DOTA-TATE PET/CT to assess therapy responses of lesions in patients with gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP NETs) treated with peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT). Method We retrospectively studied the texture analysis with relatively simple first-order parameters skewness and kurtosis on pretreatment Ga-68 DOTA-TATE PET/CT from 22 patients (eight females, 14 males; with a mean age: 54 ± 11 years) with GEP NETs who were treated with 2–6 therapy cycles of Lu-177 DOTA-TATE. A total of 326 lesions of 22 patients were evaluated in terms of treatment response by Ga-68 DOTA-TATE PET/CT examination performed before and after treatment. Receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curves were generated to assess skewness and kurtosis to discriminate between responder and nonresponder lesions. Result A total of 326 lesions of 22 patients were evaluated and 137 lesions responded partially or completely to the treatment, 189 lesions did not respond to treatment, remained stable or progressed. The skewness and kurtosis values of the lesions which did not respond to the PRRT were significantly higher than those with response to PRRT treatment (P < 0.001 and P = 0.004, respectively). However, ROC curves provided a moderate area under the curve value for skewness and a relatively low value for kurtosis (0.619 and 0.518, respectively). Conclusion Texture analysis using skewness and kurtosis of the lesions on pretreatment Ga-68 DOTA-TATE PET/CT was able to predict their responsiveness to PRRT.

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a disease characterized by a monoclonal plasma cell population in the bone marrow whereby osseous involvement is a predominant feature. The aim of this prospective study was to investigate the combined use of F-18 FDG and F-18 NaF PET/CT in the skeletal assessment of patients with MM and to compare the efficacy of these two PET tracers regarding detection of myeloma-indicative osseous lesions. A total of 26 patients (14 females and 12 males, mean age 61.8 ± 1.8 years (range 40-81 years)) with MM diagnosed according to standard criteria. All patients underwent both F-18 FDG PET/CT and F-18 NaF PET/CT scans within 1 week after the completion of the usual staging workup for MM. In total, approximately 128 focal F-18 FDG avid skeletal lesions were detected; the stage I (n = 5) patients had 10 bone lesions, the stage II (n = 11) patients had 43 lesions, and the stage III (n = 10) patients demonstrated 75 focal bone lesions. F-18 NaF PET/CTs demonstrated fewer myeloma indicative lesions than F-18 FDG PET/CTs. Totally, 57 focal bone lesions were detected with whole body F-18 NaF PET/CT (mean 2.19 ± 0.34, between 1 and 9 lesions); the five stage I patients had 6 bone lesions, the 11 stage II pts had 18 lesions, and the ten stage III patients demonstrated 33 focal bone lesions. On the other hand, F-18 NaF PET/CT demonstrated additional 135 bone lesions defined as rib fractures and other findings due to degenerative changes. In conclusion, our study implies that F-18 NaF PET/CT scan did not actually aid for assessing the myelomatous bone lesions in patients with MM. Therefore, a complementary F-18 NaF PET/CT may be an accurate modality for detecting of bone fracture in patients with MM.

No abstract

Lymph nodes, bones, and liver are the most typical metastatic sites for prostate cancer. However, isolated liver metastasis from prostate cancer is extremely rare. Here, we report a 75-year-old man with newly diagnosed prostate adenocarcinoma, with isolated liver metastasis detected by 68Ga-PSMA (68Ga–prostate-specific membrane antigen) PET/CT. There was no sign of regional or distant metastases elsewhere. This case highlights the value of 68Ga-PSMA PET/CT in detecting a very uncommon solitary liver metastasis from prostate cancer.

No abstract

Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the contributory role of histogram-based textural features (HBTFs) extracted from 18 fluorinefluorodeoxyglucose ( 18 F-FDG) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) in tumoral heterogeneity (TH) evaluation and invasive lung adenocarcinoma (ILA) prognosis prediction. Methods: This retrospective study analyzed the data of 72 patients with ILA who underwent 18 F-FDG PET/CT followed by surgical resection. The maximum standardized uptake value (SUV max ), metabolic tumor volume, and total lesion glycolysis values were calculated for each tumor. Additionally, HBTFs were extracted from 18 F-FDG PET/CT images using the software program. ILA was classified into the following five histopathological subtypes according to the predominant pattern: Lepidic adenocarcinoma (LA), acinar adenocarcinoma, papillary adenocarcinoma, solid adenocarcinoma (SA), and micropapillary adenocarcinoma (MA). Differences between 18 F-FDG PET/CT parameters and histopathological subtypes were evaluated using non-parametric tests. The study endpoints include overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS). The prognostic values of clinicopathological factors and 18 F-FDG PET/CT parameters were evaluated using the Cox regression analyses. Results: The median SUV max and entropy values were significantly higher in SA-MA, whereas lower in LA. The median energy-uniformity value of the LA was significantly higher than the others. Among all parameters, only skewness and kurtosis were significantly associated with lymph node involvement status. The median values for follow-up time, PFS, and OS were 31.26, 16.07, and 20.87 months, respectively. The univariate Cox regression analysis showed that lymph node involvement was the only significant predictor for PFS. The multivariate Cox regression analysis revealed that higher SUV max (≥11.69) and advanced stage (IIB-IIIA) were significantly associated with poorer OS [hazard ratio (HR): 3.580, p=0.024 and HR: 7.608, p=0.007, respectively]. Conclusion: HBTFs were tightly associated with clinicopathological factors causing TH. Among the 18 F-FDG PET/CT parameters, only skewness and kurtosis were associated with lymph node involvement, whereas SUV max was the only independent predictor of OS. TH measurement with HBTFs may contribute to conventional metabolic parameters in guiding precision medicine for ILA.

No abstract