Published in:
01-10-2009 | Editorial Commentary
Should FDG PET/CT be used for the initial staging of breast cancer?
Authors:
David Groheux, Elif Hindié, Domenico Rubello, Marc Espié, Georges Baillet, Sylvie Giacchetti, Jean-Louis Misset, Jean-Luc Moretti
Published in:
European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
|
Issue 10/2009
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Excerpt
Previous studies have pointed to the suboptimal sensitivity of
18F-FDG PET in assessing axillary lymph node status in breast cancer patients [
1,
2]. In this issue of
The European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Heusner and colleagues from the University Hospital of Essen bring further evidence to this statement. The study shows that contrast-enhanced full-dose FDG PET/CT is also not able to replace the sentinel lymph node biopsy technique (SLNB) or axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) for axillary staging [
3]. The authors retrospectively examined the data of 61 consecutive women with histopathologically confirmed breast cancer who had received an i.v. contrast-enhanced whole-body FDG PET/CT. Twenty-four patients (39%) had preoperative clinical stage T1 [
4], while the others had larger tumours. In all patients, the ipsilateral axilla was assessed for lymph node metastases either with SLNB, ALND or both. …
