Clinical usefulness of 18F-FDG PET-CT for patients with gallbladder cancer and cholangiocarcinoma.
BACKGROUND
Reports concerning the clinical usefulness of (18)F 2-fluoro-2-deoxy-D: -glucose integrated positron emission and computed tomography ((18)F-FDG PET-CT) for patients with gallbladder cancer and cholangiocarcinoma are relatively scarce. The purpose of this study was to assess the diagnostic value of PET-CT in relation to a conventional imaging modality, multidetector row CT (MDCT), for patients with gallbladder cancer and cholangiocarcinoma.


METHODS
Ninety-nine patients with suspected gallbladder cancer and cholangiocarcinoma who underwent both PET-CT and MDCT for initial staging were included in our study. The results of these two imaging modalities for evaluating primary tumors, regional lymph nodes and distant metastases were compared with the final diagnoses based on pathological or clinical findings.


RESULTS
A maximum standardized uptake value (SUV(max)) of 3.65 was found to be the best cutoff value for detecting a malignant tumor. The overall values for the sensitivities, specificities, positive predictive values (PPVs), negative predictive values (NPVs) and the accuracies of PET-CT and MDCT for the detection of a primary tumor were 90.2, 70.6, 93.7, 60.0, 86.9% and 84.2, 70.6, 93.2, 48.0, 81.8%, respectively. PET-CT demonstrated no significant advantage over MDCT for the diagnosis of a primary tumor. PET-CT showed a significantly higher PPV (94.1 vs. 77.5%, P = 0.04) than that found for MDCT in the diagnosis of regional lymph node metastasis. Additionally, PET-CT showed a significantly higher sensitivity (94.7 vs. 63.2%, P = 0.02) than that found for MDCT in the diagnosis of distant metastasis.


CONCLUSIONS
PET-CT is valuable for detecting regional lymph node involvement and unsuspected distant metastases that are not diagnosed by MDCT.
Lee
Seung Won
SW
Department of Internal Medicine, Kangbuk Samsung Hospital, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
Kim
Hong Joo
HJ
Park
Jung Ho
JH
Park
Dong Il
DI
Cho
Yong Kyun
YK
Sohn
Chong Il
CI
Jeon
Woo Kyu
WK
Kim
Byung Ik
BI
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001650:Bile Duct Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis*; D001653:Bile Ducts, Intrahepatic; D018281:Cholangiocarcinoma / Q000175:diagnosis*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; D005706:Gallbladder Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed
D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18