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Multicentre study of 18F-FDG-PET/CT prostate incidental uptake

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Abstract

Aim

The purpose of our study was to establish the prevalence and pathological nature of fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) prostate incidental uptake (PIU) among patients studied for non-prostate-malignant purposes in three nuclear medicine centres.

Methods

We retrospectively evaluated 20,422 scans performed on male patients; all patients underwent 18F-FDG-PET/CT for purposes not related to prostate disease.

Results

Among 20,422 patients PIU was identified for 280 (1.4 %) with an average age of 70 ± 10.7 years. Sixty-three of the 280 patients with PIU (22.5 %) underwent PSA dosage and biopsy to determine the nature of the incidental uptake. Thirty-five of the 63 (55.5 %) PIU were malignant whereas 28/63 (44.5 %) were benign. The average value of PSA for patients with benign PIU was 3.7 ± 2.8 ng/ml whereas it was 7.8 ± 8.2 ng/ml in patients with malignant PIU; this difference was statistically significant. For malignant lesions, the average lesion-to-liver SUVmax ratio was 2.9 ± 2.5 and the average lesion-to-blood-pool SUVmax ratio was 3.7 ± 2.5. For benign lesions, the average lesion-to-liver SUVmax ratio was 2.5 ± 1.7 and the average lesion-to-blood-pool SUVmax ratio was 3.5 ± 2.4; there was no statistically significant difference between lesion-to-liver and lesion-to-blood-pool SUVmax ratios for benign and malignant lesions.

Conclusion

Because PIU values are indicative of malignancy for a substantial percentage of patients, further investigation is required.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nuclear Medicine, University of Brescia and Spedali Civili di Brescia, P.le Spedali Civili, 1, 25123, Brescia, Italy

    Francesco Bertagna, Mattia Bertoli, Federica Fracassi, Giovanni Bosio & Raffaele Giubbini

  2. Department of Nuclear Medicine, Ospedali Galliera, Genoa, Italy

    Arnoldo Piccardo & Bassam Dib

  3. Biomedical Technology Department, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy

    Giorgio Biasiotto, Luca Giovanella & Giorgio Treglia

  4. Department of Nuclear Medicine and PET/CT Center, Oncology Institute of Southern Switzerland, Bellinzona, Switzerland

    Luca Giovanella

Authors
  1. Francesco Bertagna
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  2. Arnoldo Piccardo
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  3. Bassam Dib
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  4. Mattia Bertoli
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  5. Federica Fracassi
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  6. Giovanni Bosio
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  7. Raffaele Giubbini
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  8. Giorgio Biasiotto
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  9. Luca Giovanella
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  10. Giorgio Treglia
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Francesco Bertagna.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Bertagna, F., Piccardo, A., Dib, B. et al. Multicentre study of 18F-FDG-PET/CT prostate incidental uptake. Jpn J Radiol 33, 538–546 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11604-015-0453-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11604-015-0453-y

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