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Surgery Today
Published in: Surgery Today 4/2015

01-04-2015 | Original Article

Advantages of FDG-PET/CT over CT alone in the preoperative assessment of lymph node metastasis in patients with esophageal cancer

Authors: Ryuichi Karashima, Masayuki Watanabe, Yu Imamura, Satoshi Ida, Yoshifumi Baba, Shiro Iwagami, Yuji Miyamoto, Yasuo Sakamoto, Naoya Yoshida, Hideo Baba

Published in: Surgery Today | Issue 4/2015

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Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this study was to determine the benefits of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) compared to CT alone in the preoperative assessment of lymph node metastasis in patients with esophageal cancer.

Methods

One-hundred and seven patients who underwent esophagectomy with lymph node dissection between March 2007 and December 2009 were eligible. Sixty-seven patients were treated with surgery alone (SA group), while 40 patients received preoperative treatment prior to surgery (PT group). The pathological results of 1,403 dissected lymph node stations were compared with the results obtained using each imaging modality.

Results

PET/CT showed a significantly higher specificity and positive predictive value (PPV) than CT alone (97.7 vs. 94.1 % and 64.6 vs. 44.0 %, respectively), when analyzed by the lymph node stations. The PPV of PET/CT for N1 cases was significantly better than that of CT alone (78.9 vs. 53.9 %), particularly in the PT group (91.3 vs. 65.4 %). Among the patients in the SA group, the number of metastatic nodes was significantly higher in PET-N1 cases than in PET-N0 cases (5.78 vs. 1.90).

Conclusion

PET/CT is useful for selecting patients with multiple lymph node metastases and also for detecting residual metastatic nodes after PT, and thus is beneficial to decide on the appropriate treatment strategy for patients with esophageal cancer.
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Metadata
Title
Advantages of FDG-PET/CT over CT alone in the preoperative assessment of lymph node metastasis in patients with esophageal cancer
Authors
Ryuichi Karashima
Masayuki Watanabe
Yu Imamura
Satoshi Ida
Yoshifumi Baba
Shiro Iwagami
Yuji Miyamoto
Yasuo Sakamoto
Naoya Yoshida
Hideo Baba
Publication date
01-04-2015
Publisher
Springer Japan
Published in
Surgery Today / Issue 4/2015
Print ISSN: 0941-1291
Electronic ISSN: 1436-2813
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00595-014-0965-6

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Erratum

Erratum to: Advantages of FDG-PET/CT over CT alone in the preoperative assessment of lymph node metastasis in patients with esophageal cancer