ISSN:
1619-7089
Keywords:
Key words: Soft tissue neoplasms
;
Sarcoma
;
Fluorodeoxyglucose
Source:
Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
Topics:
Medicine
Notes:
Abstract. Since musculoskeletal tumours comprise a large heterogeneous group of entities with different biological behaviour, clinical diagnosis of such lesions can be very difficult. The aim of this prospective study was to assess the usefulness of 2-[F-18]-fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) in the non-invasive evaluation of soft tissue tumours. One hundred and two patients with suspected soft tissue neoplasms were investigated by FDG-PET. The uptake of FDG was evaluated semiquantitatively by determining the tumour to background ratio (TBR). All patients underwent biopsy, resulting in the histological detection of 39 high-grade sarcomas, 16 intermediate-grade sarcomas, 11 low-grade sarcomas, 25 benign tumours, 10 tumour-like lesions such as spontaneous myositis ossificans (n = 6) and one non-Hodgkin lymphoma. All lesions except for two lipomas disclosed an increased FDG uptake. Sarcomas showed significantly higher TBR values than latent or active benign lesions (P〈0.001) and aggressive benign lesions (P〈0.05). Using a TBR cut-off level of 3.0 for malignancy, sensitivity of FDG-PET was 97.0%, specificity 65.7% and accuracy 86.3%. From our data there are three main conclusions: (1) Except for patients with pseudotumoral myositis ossificans, lesions with a TBR 〉3 were sarcomas (91.7%) or aggressive benign tumours (8.3%). (2) Tumours with a TBR 〈1.5 were latent or active benign lesions, exclusively. (3) The group with intermediate TBR values (〈3 and 〉1.5) comprised primarily latent or active benign lesions, but also four aggressive benign tumours and two low-grade sarcomas. Our data suggest that FDG-PET represents a useful tool for the evaluation of the biological activity of soft tissue neoplasms.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s002590050427
Permalink