title: Effectiveness of the addition of the brain region to the FDG-PET/CT imaging area in patients with suspected or diagnosed lung cancer.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  We aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the brain region imaging in FDG-PET/CT scanning of patients with suspected or diagnosed lung cancer.
  
  
  METHODS
  We performed the study retrospectively on the medical charts of 427 patients. We divided the FDG-PET/CT field of view (FOV) into four major imaging regions: brain, head-neck, abdomen and pelvis. Metastatic findings on these regions were checked and determined the potential of these findings to affect the chemotherapy or radiotherapy protocol or surgical management. If metastatic findings had a potential to modify these parameters, we named this situation as "clinical contribution". Considering the number of bed positions of these regions, we calculated the clinical contribution of each region and named as "effective clinical contribution". Then, we calculated the metastatic findings, clinical contribution, and effective clinical contribution ratios.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We found different brain metastasis ratios for lung cancer, solitary pulmonary mass (SPM), and solitary pulmonary nodule (SPN) groups (8.7, 2.8 and 0.9 %, respectively). In addition, the clinical contribution and effective clinical contribution ratios in the brain region for these three groups were 6.4, 2.8, 0.0 and 6.4, 2.8, 0.0 %, respectively. The highest metastatic findings (30.6 %) and clinical contribution (9.8 %) ratios were found in the abdomen region of the lung cancer group. However, the highest effective clinical contribution ratio (6.8 %) was found in the brain region within the same group.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The addition of the brain region to the limited whole-body FOV in FDG-PET/CT scanning seems to be effective in the lung cancer and SPM groups, but not in the SPN group.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Dicle University, 21280, Diyarbakir, Turkey. drbkr@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Bekir
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Tasdemir
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Oncology, Faculty of Medicine, Dicle University, Diyarbakir, Turkey. dr.zurak@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Zuhat
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Urakci
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Dicle University, 21280, Diyarbakir, Turkey. zekidostbil@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Zeki
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Dostbil
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, İzmir University, Izmir, Turkey. kemalinmektubu@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Kemal
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Unal
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Medicine, Elazig Training and Research Hospital, Elazig, Turkey. fselcuksimsek@gmail.com.
authors.forename: F Selcuk
authors.initials: FS
authors.lastname: Simsek
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Faculty of Medicine, Dicle University, Diyarbakir, Turkey. doktorfatmateke@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Fatma
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Teke
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Faculty of Medicine, Dicle University, Diyarbakir, Turkey. cegoya1@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Cemil
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Goya
mesh_terms: D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000556:secondary*; D005260:Female; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D064847:Multimodal Imaging; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography; D011857:Radiographic Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed; D051598:Whole Body Imaging
chemical_list: D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18
keywords: Brain; Field of view; Lung cancer; Positron emission tomography; Solitary pulmonary mass; Solitary pulmonary nodule