title: Staging performance of carbon-11 choline positron emission tomography/computed tomography in patients with bone and soft tissue sarcoma: comparison with conventional imaging.
abstract: The present study was conducted to compare the diagnostic accuracy between carbon-11 choline (11C-choline) positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) and conventional imaging for the staging of bone and soft tissue sarcomas. Sixteen patients who underwent 11C-choline PET/CT prior to treatment were evaluated retrospectively for staging accuracy. Conventional imaging methods consisted of 99,mTc-hydroxymethylene diphosphonate bone scintigraphy, chest CT and magnetic resonance imaging of the primary site. The images were reviewed and a consensus was reached by two board-certified radiologists who were unaware of any clinical or radiological information using hard-copy films and multimodality computer platform. Tumor stage was confirmed by histological examination and/or by an obvious progression in number and/or size of the lesions on follow-up examinations. Reviewers examining both 11C-choline PET/CT and conventional imaging classified T stage in all patients. Interpretation based on 11C-choline PET/CT, the Node (N) stage was correctly diagnosed in all patients, whereas the accuracy of conventional imaging in N stage was 63%. Tumor Node Metastasis (TNM) stage was assessed correctly with 11C-choline PET/CT in 15 of 16 patients (94%) and with conventional imaging in eight of 16 patients (50%). The overall TNM staging and N staging accuracy of 11C-choline PET/CT were significantly higher than that of conventional imaging (P < 0.05). 11C-choline PET/CT is more accurate than conventional imaging regarding clinical staging of patients with bone and soft tissue sarcomas. A whole body 11C-choline PET/CT might be acceptable for imaging studies of tumor staging prior to treatment.
authors.affiliation: Diagnostic Radiology, Research Center for Cancer Prevention and Screening, Japan. kuenstreli@nifty.com
authors.forename: Ukihide
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Tateishi
authors.forename: Umio
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Yamaguchi
authors.forename: Testuo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Maeda
authors.forename: Kunihiko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Seki
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Terauchi
authors.forename: Akira
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kawai
authors.forename: Yasuaki
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Arai
authors.forename: Noriyuki
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Moriyama
authors.forename: Tadao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kakizoe
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001859:Bone Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D002250:Carbon Radioisotopes; D002794:Choline; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography; D012509:Sarcoma / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed
chemical_list: D002250:Carbon Radioisotopes; D002794:Choline