The usefulness of F-18 FDG whole body PET in the evaluation of postoperative recurrence of cancer

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of whole body F-18 FDG PET scan for detecting postoperative recurrence of cancer. One hundred four cancer patients after operation were enrolled (14 brain tumor, 15 head and neck cancer, 23 gynecologic cancer, 16 gastrointestinal cancer, 16 thyroid cancer, and 20 other cancers). Besides conventional images (CI) including CT and MRI, F-18 FDG PET scan was obtained on ECAT EXACT 47 scanner (Siemens- CTI), beginning 60 minutes after injection of 370MBq(10mCi) of F-18 FDG. Regional scan was also obtained with emission image. Transmission images using Ge-68 were carried out for attenuation correction in both whole body and regional images. Findings of PET and CI were confirmed by pathology or clinical follow up. The sensitivity and specificity of PET for detecting recurrence were 94% and 92%, respectively. Contrarily, the sensitivity and specificity of CI were 78% and 68%. CI results were negative and PET results were positive in 11 cases. The biopsy or clinical follow-up of those cases confirmed recurrence of tumor. False negative cases of CI were frequent in patients with gynecologic cancers. Also we measured the serum concentration of tumor markers in patients with gynecologic cancer (CA125), thyroid cancer (thyroglobulin), and colorectal cancer (CEA). The sensitivity and specificity of tumor markers were 71% and 84%, respectively. We conclude that F-18 FDG PET can be used valuably in detecting recurrent foci of a wide variety of malignancy compared to conventional diagnostic methods