Head-to-Head Comparison of Neck 18F-FDG PET/MR and PET/CT in the Diagnosis of Differentiated Thyroid Carcinoma Patients after Comprehensive Treatment

Cancers

Jie Ming¹  Tao Huang¹  Weiwei Ruan²  Yangmeihui Song²  Fang Liu²  Fan Hu²  Zairong Gao²  Xiaoli Lan²  Muhsin H. Younis³  Weibo Cai³ 

[1] Department of Breast and Thyroid Surgery, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430022, China;Department of Nuclear Medicine, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430022, China;Department of Radiology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53705, USA;

关键词: thyroid neoplasms;    fluorodeoxyglucose F18 (¹⁸F-FDG);    positron emission tomography (PET);    magnetic resonance imaging (MRI);    recurrence;    neoplasm metastasis;   

DOI  :  10.3390/cancers13143436

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

We explored the clinical value of ¹⁸F-FDG PET/MR in a head-to-head comparison with PET/CT in loco-regional recurrent and metastatic cervical lymph nodes of differentiated thyroid carcinoma (DTC) patients after comprehensive treatment. ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT and neck PET/MR scans that were performed in DTC patients with suspected recurrence or cervical lymph node metastasis after comprehensive treatment were retrospectively analyzed. Detection rates, diagnostic efficacy, image conspicuity, and measured parameters were compared between ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT and PET/MR. The gold standard was histopathological diagnosis or clinical and imaging follow-up results for more than 6 months. Among the 37 patients enrolled, no suspicious signs of tumor were found in 10 patients, 24 patients had lymph node metastasis, and 3 patients had both recurrence and lymph node metastases. A total of 130 lesions were analyzed, including 3 malignant and 6 benign thyroid nodules, as well as 74 malignant and 47 benign cervical lymph nodes. Compared with PET/CT, PET/MR presented better detection rates (91.5% vs. 80.8%), image conspicuity (2.74 ± 0.60 vs. 1.9 ± 0.50, p < 0.001, especially in complex level II), and sensitivity (80.5% vs. 61.0%). SUVmax differed in benign and malignant lymph nodes in both imaging modalities (p < 0.05). For the same lesion, the SUVmax, SUVmean, and diameters measured by PET/MR and PET/CT were consistent and had significant correlation. In conclusion, compared with ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT, PET/MR was more accurate in determining recurrent and metastatic lesions, both from a patient-based and from a lesion-based perspective. Adding local PET/MR after whole-body PET/CT may be recommended to provide more precise diagnostic information and scope of surgical resection without additional ionizing radiation. Further scaling-up prospective studies and economic benefit analysis are expected.

【 授权许可】

Unknown