This study emphasizes the role of FAZA PET/CT imaging as a suitable assay with prognostic potential for detection of hypoxia in HNSCC.

ObjectiveTo compare the diagnostic accuracy of the following imaging techniques in the detection of spine metastases, using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as a reference: whole-body bone scintigraphy (WBS) with technetium-99m-MDP, [18F]-sodium fluoride (NaF) positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) and [ Patients and MethodsThe study entry criteria were biopsy-proven prostate cancer, a positive WBS consistent with bone metastases, and no history of androgen deprivation. Within 30 days of informed consent, trial scans were performed in random order. Scans were interpreted blindly for the purpose of a lesion-based analysis. The primary target variable was bone lesion (malignant/ benign) and the 'gold standard' was MRI. ResultsA total of 50 men were recruited between May 2009 and March 2012. Their mean age was 73 years, their median PSA level was 84 ng/mL, and the mean Gleason score of the tumours was 7.7. A total of 46 patients underwent all four scans, while four missed one PET/CT scan. A total of 526 bone lesions were found in the 50 men: 363 malignant and 163 non-malignant according to MRI. Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values and accuracy were: WBS: 51, 82, 86, 43 and 61%; 54, 82, 78 and 81%; 91, 95, 75 and 87%, respectively. ConclusionsWe found that FCH-PET/CT and NaF-PET/CT were superior to WBS with regard to detection of prostate cancer bone metastases within the spine. The present results call into question the use of WBS as the method of choice in patients with hormone-naïve prostate cancer.

Influenza vaccination may lead to FDG-avid draining lymph nodes beyond 1 month.

FDG-PET/CT was accurate in diagnosing recurrence in breast cancer patients. It allowed for distant recurrence to be correctly ruled out and resulted in only a small number of false-positive cases. Exploratory findings suggest that FDG-PET/CT has greater accuracy than conventional imaging technologies in this patient group.

CAC is common in healthy middle-aged Danes with a low HeartScore, and, on the contrary, high-risk subjects very frequently do not have CAC. The therapeutic and prognostic implications of these observations remain to be clarified.

What ' s known on the subject? and What does the study add? Staging of patients with prostate cancer is the cornerstone of treatment. However, after curative intended therapy a high portion of patients relapse with local and/or distant recurrence. Therefore, one may question whether surgical lymph node dissection (LND) is suffi ciently reliable for staging of these patients.Several imaging methods for primary LN staging of patients with prostate cancer have been tested. Acceptable detection rates have not been achieved by CT or MRI or for that matter with PET/CT using the most common tracer fl uoromethylcholine (FCH). Other more recent metabolic tracers like acetate and choline seem to be more sensitive for assessment of LNs in both primary staging and re-staging. However, previous studies were small. Therefore, we assessed the value of [18 F ] FCH PET/CT for primary LN staging in a prospective study of a larger sample and with a ' blinded ' review. After a study period of 3 years and > 200 included patients, we concluded that [18 F ] FCH PET/CT did not reach an optimal detection rate compared with LND, and, therefore, it cannot replace this procedure. However, we did detect several bone metastases with [18 F ] FCH PET/CT that the normal bone scans had missed, and this might be worth pursuing. OBJECTIVES• To assess the value of [ 18 F ] fl uoromethylcholine (FCH) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) for lymph node (LN) staging of prostate cancer.• To evaluate if FCH PET/CT can replace LN dissection (LND) for LN staging of prostate cancer, as about one-third of patients with prostate cancer who receive intended curative therapy will have recurrence, one reason being undetected LN involvement. PATIENTS AND METHODS• From January 2008 to December 2010, 210 intermediate-or high-risk patients had a FCH PET/CT scan before regional LND.• After dissection, the result of histological examination of the LNs (gold standard) was compared with the result of FCH PET/CT obtained by ' blinded review ' .• Sensitivity, specifi city, positive (PPV), and negative predictive values (NPV) of FCH PET/CT were measured for detection of LNe metastases. RESULTS• Of the 210 patients, 76 (36.2%) were in the intermediate-risk group and 134 (63.8%) were in the high-risk group. A medium (range) of 5 (1 -28) LNs were removed per patient.• Histological examination of removed LNs showed metastases in 41 patients. Sensitivity, specifi city, PPV, and NPV of FCH PET/CT for patient-based LN staging were 73.2%, 87.6%, 58.8% and 93.1%, respectively.• Corresponding values for LN-based analyses were 56.2%, 94.0%, 40.2%, and 96.8%, respectively.• The mean diameter of the true positive LN metastases was signifi cantly larger than that of the false negative LNs (10.3 vs 4.6 mm; P < 0.001).• In addition, FCH PET/CT detected a high focal bone uptake, consistent with bone metastases, in 18 patients, 12 of which had histologically benign LNs. CONCLUSIONS• Due to a relatively low sensitivity and a correspondingly rather low PPV, FCH PET/ CT i...

Objective. Cardiac events are a major cause of death in patients with idiopathic inflammatory myopathies. The study objective was in a controlled setting to describe cardiac abnormalities by noninvasive methods in a cohort of patients with polymyositis (PM) or dermatomyositis (DM) and to identify predictors for cardiac dysfunction. Methods. In a cross-sectional study, 76 patients with PM/DM and 48 matched healthy controls (HCs) were assessed by serum levels of cardiac troponin I, electrocardiography, Holter monitoring, echocardiography with tissue Doppler imaging, and quantitative cardiac Results. Compared to HCs, patients with PM/DM more frequently had left ventricular diastolic dysfunction (LVDD) (12% versus 0%; P 5 0.02) and longer QRS and QT intervals (P 5 0.007 and P < 0.0001, respectively). In multivariate analysis, factors associated with LVDD were age (P 5 0.001), disease duration (P 5 0.004), presence of myositis-specific or -associated autoantibodies (P 5 0.05), and high cardiac 99m Tc-PYP uptake (P 5 0.006). In multivariate analysis of the pooled data for patients and HCs, a diagnosis of PM/DM (P < 0.0001) was associated with LVDD. Conclusion. Patients with PM or DM had an increased prevalence of cardiac abnormalities compared to HCs. LVDD was a common occurrence in PM/DM patients and correlated to disease duration. In addition, the association of LVDD with myositis-specific or -associated autoantibodies and high cardiac 99m Tc-PYP uptake supports the notion of underlying autoimmunity and myocardial inflammation in patients with PM/DM.

18-F-FDG PET is a useful tool for diagnosing EMD in AML and for assessing treatment responses of EMD in AML.