Pilot comparison of F-fluorocholine and F-fluorodeoxyglucose PET/CT with conventional imaging in prostate cancer.
BACKGROUND
Conventional imaging (CI) is known to have limitations with respect to staging of patients with primary or relapsed prostate cancer. Positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) with (18)F-flurodeoxyglucose (FDG) is also often suboptimal because of low tracer avidity, but (18)F-fluorocholine (FCH) appears to be a promising alternative molecular imaging probe. We report a prospective pilot study of PET/CT comparing both tracers for staging and restaging of patients with prostate cancer.


METHODS
Sixteen prostate cancer patients were evaluated (7 for staging and 9 for restaging). All patients also underwent CI, comprising at least an abdominopelvic CT and a bone scan. All imaging results and other relevant data were extracted from the imaging reports and medical charts.


RESULTS
Based on all imaging-detected disease sites, both FCH-PET/CT and FDG-PET/CT (79%) were more sensitive than CI (14%), with the highest number of sites of nodal and distant disease on FCH PET/CT. FCH-PET/CT alone would have provided sufficient clinical information to form an appropriate management plan in 88% of cases, as compared with 56% for CI.


CONCLUSIONS
FCH-PET/CT has the potential to impact on the management of patients with prostate cancer significantly more often than CI.
Beauregard
J-M
JM
Centre for Molecular Imaging, Department of Cancer Imaging, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
Williams
S G
SG
Degrado
T R
TR
Roselt
P
P
Hicks
R J
RJ
D000368:Aged; D002794:Choline / Q000031:analogs & derivatives*; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D010865:Pilot Projects; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography / Q000379:methods*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011467:Prostate / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology*; D011856:Radiographic Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods*
D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; C514960:fluorocholine; D002794:Choline