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Comparison of 18F-NaF PET/CT with Other Imaging Methods in the Detection of Bone Metastases in Patients with Medullary Thyroid Cancer: a Report of a Series of 31 Cases

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Abstract

Purpose

To compare the 18F-NaF PET/CT studies (18F-NaF) with other imaging methods in the detection of skeletal metastases (SM) in patients with medullary thyroid cancer (MTC).

Methods

We retrospectively analyzed 31 patients with MTC who performed 18F-NaF to assess SM. The results of the 18F-NaF were compared with other imaging methods performed for metastasis detection: 99Tc-MDP bone scan (BS), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), contrast-enhanced CT (CT), and 68Ga-Dotatate and 18F-FDG PET/CT studies. A qualitative analysis comparing the 18F-NaF findings with the ones of the other methods was performed, and the results were classified as superior (>), equal (=), and inferior (<).

Results

Eleven patients had no bone metastases detected on any of the imaging methods used. Twenty patients presented SM depicted on 18F-NaF. Of these 20 patients, 12 performed bone scan (in 9 18F-NaF > BS and in 3 18F-NaF = BS), 1 performed 18F-FDG (18F-NaF > 18F-FDG), 4 performed 68Ga-Dotatate (in 2 18F-NaF > 68Ga-Dotatate and in 2 18F-NaF = 68Ga-Dotatate), 20 performed CT of at least one body segment (in 15 18F-NaF = CT and in 5 18F-NaF > CT), and 16 performed MRI of at least one body segment, and in all of them, the 18F-NaF was equal to the MRI. Beside this, the 18F-NaF detected SM in body segments not routinely scanned in MRI and CT.

Conclusion

In patients with MTC, the 18F-NaF seems to be equal or superior to other imaging modalities in the detection of SM and allows the analysis of the whole skeletal in a single study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Nuclear Medicine, São Paulo Cancer Institute (ICESP), São Paulo, Brazil

    Cristina Emiko Ueda, Paulo Schiavom Duarte, George Barbério Coura-Filho, Heitor Naoki Sado & Carlos Alberto Buchpiguel

  2. Division of Endocrinology, São Paulo Cancer Institute (ICESP), São Paulo, Brazil

    Luciana Audi de Castroneves & Ana Oliveira Hoff

  3. Division of Nuclear Medicine, Department of Radiology and Oncology, Medical School of University of São Paulo (FMUSP), São Paulo, Brazil

    Heitor Naoki Sado, Marcelo Tatit Sapienza & Carlos Alberto Buchpiguel

Authors
  1. Cristina Emiko Ueda
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  2. Paulo Schiavom Duarte
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  3. Luciana Audi de Castroneves
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  4. George Barbério Coura-Filho
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Correspondence to Paulo Schiavom Duarte.

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Conflict of Interest

Cristina Emiko Ueda, Paulo Schiavom Duarte, Luciana Audi de Castroneves, George Barbério Coura-Filho, Heitor Naoki Sado, Marcelo Tatit Sapienza, Ana Oliveira Hoff, and Carlos Alberto Buchpiguel declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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The institutional review board of our institute approved this study, and the requirement to obtain informed consent was waived.

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Ueda, C.E., Duarte, P.S., de Castroneves, L.A. et al. Comparison of 18F-NaF PET/CT with Other Imaging Methods in the Detection of Bone Metastases in Patients with Medullary Thyroid Cancer: a Report of a Series of 31 Cases. Nucl Med Mol Imaging 54, 281–291 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13139-020-00666-3

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