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Does whole-body Patlak 18F-FDG PET imaging improve lesion detectability in clinical oncology?

  • Guillaume Fahrni
  • Nicolas A. KarakatsanisEmail author
  • Giulia Di Domenicantonio
  • Valentina Garibotto
  • Habib ZaidiEmail author
Nuclear Medicine
First Online:
  • 70 Downloads

Abstract

Purpose

Single-pass whole-body (WB) 18F-FDG PET/CT imaging is routinely employed for the clinical assessment of malignant, infectious, and inflammatory diseases. Our aim in this study is the systematic clinical assessment of lesion detectability in multi-pass WB parametric imaging enabling direct imaging of the highly quantitative 18F-FDG influx rate constant Ki, as a complement to standard-of-care standardized uptake value (SUV) imaging for a range of oncologic studies.

Methods

We compared SUV and Ki images of 18 clinical studies of different oncologic indications (lesion characterization and staging) including standard-of-care SUV and dynamic WB PET protocols in a single session. The comparison involved both the visual assessment and the quantitative evaluation of SUVmean, SUVmax, Kimean, Kimax, tumor-to-background ratio (TBRSUV, TBRKi), and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNRSUV, CNRKi) quality metrics.

Results

Overall, both methods provided good-quality images suitable for visual interpretation. A total of 118 lesions were detected, including 40 malignant (proven) and 78 malignant (unproven) lesions. Of those, 111 were detected on SUV and 108 on Ki images. One proven malignant lesion was detected only on Ki images whereas none of the proven malignant lesions was visible only on SUV images. The proven malignant lesions had overall higher Ki TBR and CNR scores. One unproven lesion, which was later confirmed as benign, was detected only on the SUV images (false-positive). Overall, our results from 40 proven malignant lesions suggested improved sensitivity (from 92.5 to 95%) and accuracy (from 90.24 to 95.12%) and potentially enhanced specificity with Ki over SUV imaging.

Conclusion

Oncologic WB Patlak Ki imaging may achieve equivalent or superior lesion detectability with reduced false-positive rates when complementing standard-of-care SUV imaging.

Key Points

• The whole-body spatio-temporal distribution of 18 F-FDG uptake may reveal clinically useful information on oncologic diseases to complement the standard-of-care SUV metric.

• Parametric imaging resulted in less false-positive indications of non-specific 18 F-FDG uptake relative to SUV.

• Parametric imaging may achieve equivalent or superior 18 F-FDG lesion detectability than standard-of-care SUV imaging in oncology.

Keywords

Positron emission tomography Molecular imaging Tumors 

Abbreviations

18F-FDG

18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose

CT

Computed tomography

FOV

Field-of-view

IDIF

Image-derived input function

LV

Left ventricle

PET

Positron emission tomography

PET/CT

Positron emission tomography/computed tomography

ROI

Region of interest

SUV

Standardized uptake value

TOF

Time-of-flight

VOI

Volume of interest

WB

Whole-body

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Notes

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation under grant SNFN 320030_176052 and the Swiss Cancer Research Foundation under Grant KFS-3855-02-2016.

Funding

This study has received funding by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Compliance with ethical standards

Guarantor

The scientific guarantor of this publication is Prof. Habib Zaidi.

Conflict of interest

The authors of this manuscript declare no relationships with any companies whose products or services may be related to the subject matter of the article.

Statistics and biometry

No complex statistical methods were necessary for this paper.

Informed consent

Written informed consent was obtained from all subjects (patients) in this study.

Ethical approval

Institutional Review Board approval was obtained.

Methodology

• prospective

• observational

• performed at one institution

Supplementary material

330_2018_5966_MOESM1_ESM.docx (2.8 mb)
Supplementary Figure 1 (DOCX 2869 kb)

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Copyright information

© European Society of Radiology 2019

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Division of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular ImagingGeneva University HospitalGenevaSwitzerland
  2. 2.Division of Radiopharmaceutical Sciences, Department of RadiologyWeill Cornell Medical College of Cornell UniversityNew YorkUSA
  3. 3.Faculty of MedicineUniversity of GenevaGenevaSwitzerland
  4. 4.Geneva University NeurocenterUniversity of GenevaGenevaSwitzerland
  5. 5.Department of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular ImagingUniversity of GroningenGroningenNetherlands
  6. 6.Department of Nuclear MedicineUniversity of Southern DenmarkOdenseDenmark

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