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Nasopharyngeal carcinoma with splenic and cystic liver metastases in a pediatric patient: 18F-FDG PET-CT findings

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Abstract

Pediatric nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is rare and usually poorly differentiated. We report a 14-year-old boy with NPC with metastases to liver, spleen, lymph nodes and bone marrow. The liver metastases closely resembled benign cystic liver disease on imaging; however, they showed intense uptake similar to other metastatic sites on positron emission tomography (PET) scan. A liver biopsy could not be performed on the boy. The boy responded clinically to platinum-based chemotherapy, and all the baseline PET-positive lesions became negative. This case highlights the rarity of splenic and cystic liver metastases in pediatric NPC and demonstrates the potential use of PET/CT in diagnosis, staging and response assessment in metastatic pediatric NPC.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Oncology, Dr. B. R. A. Institute Rotary Cancer Hospital, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, 110029, India

    Venkatraman Radhakrishnan & Sameer Bakhshi

  2. Department of Radiology, Dr. B. R. A. Institute Rotary Cancer Hospital, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India

    Sanjay Thulkar

  3. Department of Nuclear Medicine, Dr. B. R. A. Institute Rotary Cancer Hospital, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India

    Sellam Karunanithi

  4. Department of Pathology, Dr. B. R. A. Institute Rotary Cancer Hospital, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India

    Nadeem Tanveer

Authors
  1. Venkatraman Radhakrishnan
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  2. Sanjay Thulkar
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  3. Sellam Karunanithi
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  4. Nadeem Tanveer
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  5. Sameer Bakhshi
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Correspondence to Sameer Bakhshi.

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Radhakrishnan, V., Thulkar, S., Karunanithi, S. et al. Nasopharyngeal carcinoma with splenic and cystic liver metastases in a pediatric patient: 18F-FDG PET-CT findings. Pediatr Radiol 40 (Suppl 1), 79–82 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00247-010-1844-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00247-010-1844-y

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