Contribution of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography to the diagnosis of early pancreatic carcinoma.
OBJECTIVE
Pancreatic carcinoma has a poor prognosis, and early detection is essential to allow potentially curative resection. Despite the wide array of diagnostic tools available, the detection of small pancreatic tumors remains difficult. The aim of this study was to investigate the contribution of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) to the diagnosis of early pancreatic cancer.


METHODS
FDG-PET was performed in 56 patients with pancreatic cancer who underwent curative surgery. The standardized uptake value (SUV) for FDG was calculated in each patient and the relationships between the SUV and various clinicopathological factors were analyzed.


RESULTS
The tumors ranged from 0.8 to 6.5 cm in diameter. When the cutoff value for the SUV was set at 2.5, 51 of the 56 patients (91%) had a positive FDG-PET study. The SUV did not show a significant difference in relation to tumor differentiation or pTS and pT factors. There was also no correlation between the SUV and the maximum tumor diameter (r = 0.22; P = 0.1). Five tumors had an SUV below the cutoff value, and all of these lesions had intermediate or scirrhous stroma rather than medullary stroma.


CONCLUSIONS
These results indicate that FDG-PET is useful for the detection of small early pancreatic cancers.
Seo
Satoru
S
Department of Hepato-Biliary-Pancreatic Surgery and Transplantation, Kyoto University, Kyoto, 606-8507, Japan.
Doi
Ryuichiro
R
Machimoto
Takafumi
T
Kami
Kazuhiro
K
Masui
Toshihiko
T
Hatano
Etsuro
E
Ogawa
Kohei
K
Higashi
Tatsuya
T
Uemoto
Shinji
S
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002277:Carcinoma / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000601:surgery; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D042241:Early Diagnosis; D005260:Female; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010190:Pancreatic Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000601:surgery; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography / Q000379:methods*; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D016896:Treatment Outcome
D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18