Follow-up of women with breast cancer: comparison between MRI and FDG PET

Abstract

The aim of this study was to compare MRI of the breast with (18)F-fluoro-deoxy-glucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) in patients with suspected local or regional breast cancer recurrence or suspected contralateral breast cancer. Thirty-two patients (mean age 57.2 years, age range 32-76 years) with suspected loco-regional recurrence ( n=19), chest wall recurrence ( n=5), and suspected secondary tumor of the contralateral breast ( n=8) underwent MRI of the breast and FDG PET of the whole body and breast region. Cytology/histology ( n=17) or a clinical follow-up examination ( n=15) with additional imaging served as the standard of reference. A McNemar test was performed to compare PET and MRI, and kappa was determined to quantify agreement of both methods. Sensitivity was 79 and 100%, specificity was 94 and 72%, and accuracy was 88 and 84% for MRI and PET, respectively. Additional metastases outside the field of view of MRI were found in PET in 5 patients. In this study both imaging methods had comparable accuracy. The detection of distant metastases with whole-body PET imaging can influence patient management.

Improving Specificity of Breast MRI Using Prone PET and Fused MRI and PET 3D Volume Datasets

“…Breast MRI has been shown to be highly effective in identifying occult tumor, but FP findings may occur (6,(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34). As both MRI and PET/CT are frequently requested for disease evaluation for suspected breast cancer, a mechanism to foster direct comparison of lesions detected with both modalities would be useful (7)(8)(9).…”

“…The breasts become markedly distorted when supine/prone images are registered and it is challenging to identify the corresponding lesion in all 3 orthogonal planes of the fused images (35). Several groups have suggested that an independent PET scan should be acquired in the prone position to increase the quality of PET in the breast (7,8,(36)(37)(38)(39)(40).…”

“…It has been shown (7) that the higher standardized uptake values (SUVs) provided by prone 18 F-FDG PET breast imaging in cancer detection were significantly different from those obtained in supine imaging alone and increased the confidence of the readers. The value of using prone PET with MRI scans has been examined, simply using side-by-side comparison (8).…”

Evaluation of Novel Genetic Algorithm Generated Schemes for Positron Emission Tomography (PET)/Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Image Fusion

“…Initial experience with combined PET (functional imaging) and MRI (anatomical localization) has yielded positive results, providing benefits compared to either modality alone [12][13][14][15]. While no clinical scanners currently exist capable of acquiring images from both modalities, prototypes have been developed [16,17], and commercial devices are in the not too distant future.…”

Comparison of Gadobenate Dimeglumine and Gadopentetate Dimeglumine for Breast MRI Screening: a Meta-analysis

“…Because the dosage unit of contrast media can't be translated, that is to say, the absolute difference on dosage among these studies is unknown, 2 articles were rejected. 17 studies (Fobben et al, 1995;Stomper et al, 1995;Fenlon et al, 1997;Helbich et al, 1997;Fischer et al, 1999;Alamo et al, 2001;Kawashima et al, 2001;Goerres et al, 2003;Knopp et al, 2003;Pediconi et al, 2005;Sardanelli et al, 2005;Kneeshaw et al, 2006;Pediconi et al, 2007;Pediconi et al, 2008;Woodhams et al, 2010;Luciani et al, 2011;Martincich et al, 2011) with 1934 patients were included based on the inclusion criteria and the data integrity.…”