Value of fourth and subsequent post-therapy follow-up 18F-FDG PET/CT scans in patients with breast cancer.
Journal Article (Journal Article)
Objective
To evaluate the accuracy and value of the fourth and subsequent post-therapy follow-up fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (F-FDG) PET/computed tomography (CT) scans in the clinical assessment of breast cancer patients.Materials and methods
Ninety-two female patients, with a total of 426 fourth and subsequent follow-up PET/CT scans, were retrospectively included. Patients were followed for a median of 23.7 months (range, 0.7-124.4) from the fourth follow-up PET/CT. The diagnostic accuracy of PET/CT, its impact on clinical assessment, patients' management, and survival outcome were established.Result
Of the 426 follow-up PET/CT scans, 264 (62%) were interpreted as positive and 162 (38%) were interpreted as negative. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and accuracy of the fourth and subsequent follow-up PET/CT scans were 97.7, 98.1, 98.8, 96.3, and 97.9%, respectively. Fourth and subsequent follow-up PET/CT were useful in excluding a tumor in 13.4% (39/292) of patients with a clinical suspicion of recurrence and identifying suspected recurrence in 10.5% (14/134) of patients without previous clinical suspicion. A change in management was noted in 6.7% (9/134) of scan times when the scans were performed without previous clinical suspicion of recurrence or therapy response and was 27.7% (81/292) when the scans were performed with clinical suspicion. Overall survival differed significantly between patients with all negative follow-up scans (n=23) and those who had at least one positive follow-up scan (n=69) (hazard ratio of 4.65, P<0.001).Conclusion
The fourth and subsequent PET/CT scans performed after the completion of primary treatment led to a change in management in 27.7% of patients when the scans were performed with clinical suspicion and only in 6.7% of patients when performed without clinical suspicion or context.Full Text
Duke Authors
Cited Authors
- Taghipour, M; Sheikhbahaei, S; Trahan, TJ; Subramaniam, RM
Published Date
- June 2016
Published In
Volume / Issue
- 37 / 6
Start / End Page
- 602 - 608
PubMed ID
- 27110955
Pubmed Central ID
- PMC4898188
Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)
- 1473-5628
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
- 0143-3636
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
- 10.1097/mnm.0000000000000491
Language
- eng