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Somatostatin receptor imaging with [68Ga]Ga-DOTATATE positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma

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European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

To explore the feasibility of [68Ga]Ga-DOTATATE positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) in patients with non-keratinizing nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) and to evaluate whether [68Ga]Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT could be used for non-invasive determination of somatostatin receptor 2 (SSTR2) expression in NPC.

Methods

This prospective study included patients with NPC who underwent [68Ga]Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT between February and May 2021. The [68Ga]Ga-DOTATATE and [18F]FDG uptakes in primary and metastatic NPC lesions were calculated and compared, and the [68Ga]Ga-DOTATATE uptake between SSTR2 score groups was analysed.

Results

A total of 36 participants (25 patients, initial staging; 11 patients, recurrence detection) were included; 33 patients also underwent [18F]FDG PET/CT for staging/restaging as a part of their routine diagnostic workup. [68Ga]Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT showed an intense tracer uptake in primary and metastatic NPC lesions. The radiotracer uptake was higher with [68Ga]Ga-DOTATATE than with [18F]FDG PET in primary NPC lesions (SUVmax: 12.03 vs. 10.07, P = 0.048; tumour-to-brain ratio: 36.16 vs. 0.86, P < 0.001) and regional lymph node metastases (median SUVmax: 9.11 vs. 6.12, P < 0.001) and comparable in bone and visceral metastases. Importantly, most NPC lesions showed intense SSTR2 expression (85.7%), which was strongly correlated with the [68Ga]Ga-DOTATATE uptake. The SUVmax of SSTR2-negative lesions was significantly lower than that of SSTR2-positive lesions (SUVmax: 4.95 vs. 12.61, P = 0.013).

Conclusion

[68Ga]Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT is a promising imaging modality for detecting primary and metastatic NPC, with favourable image contrast and comparable diagnostic efficacy when compared to [18F]FDG PET/CT. An intense SSTR2 expression was observed in most NPCs, and this expression was significantly correlated with the [68Ga]Ga-DOTATATE uptake.

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Data availability

Data generated or analysed during the study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Code availability

Not applicable.

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Funding

This work was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant number 82071961 and 81772893), Key Medical and Health Projects in Xiamen (Grant number 3502Z20191104), National University of Singapore Start-up Grant (NUHSRO/2020/133/Startup/08), NUS School of Medicine Nanomedicine Translational Research Programme (NUHSRO/2021/034/TRP/09/Nanomedicine), and NUS School of Medicine Kickstart Initiative (NUHSRO/2021/044/Kickstart/09/LOA).

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Correspondence to Long Sun, Xiaoyuan Chen, Qin Lin or Haojun Chen.

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All procedures involving human participants were carried out in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any experiments with animals.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Liang Zhao, Yizhen Pang, and Yuhuan Wang contributed equally to this work.

This article is part of the Topical Collection on Oncology - Head and Neck

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Zhao, L., Pang, Y., Wang, Y. et al. Somatostatin receptor imaging with [68Ga]Ga-DOTATATE positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 49, 1360–1373 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-021-05587-7

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