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the bean-counters are going to hate this!-- Value of PET scanning
Q J Nucl Med Mol Imaging. 2006 Mar;50(1):61-7. Links
A retrospective analysis of the impact of (18)F-FDG PET scans on clinical management of 133 breast cancer patients.
Santiago JF, Gonen M, Yeung H, Macapinlac H, Larson S.
PET Center, St. Luke's Medical Center, Quezon City, Philippines.
AIM: While it is well-known that there is(18)F-FDG uptake in breast tumors, clinical impact of (18)F-FDG PET in managing breast cancer patients is not well-studied. METHODS: One hundred and thirty-three consecutive breast cancer patients from May 1996 to June 2000 were studied. All patients were treated and being followed. Reasons of referral included equivocal conventional studies, staging/re-staging, clinical suspicion of recurrence, and elevated serum tumor markers. Clinical status at 6 months postPET is used as the gold standard in lesions of worsening versus stable or improving. RESULTS: PET was 69% sensitive and 80% specific in predicting clinical stage at 6 months. This 69% of the patients who got worse at 6 months was PET positive and 80% of the patients who were stable or improving at 6 months were PET negative. There was a significant association between PET results and clinical outcome, after adjusting for stage of disease (P=0.04), or for the treatment patients received (P<0.01). Negative PET results changed therapy as often as positive ones did. PET influenced treatment decisions in 74% of the patients referred for study. CONCLUSIONS: PET holds promise as a sensitive and specific modality in following treated breast cancer patients. PET results contain information on 6 month outcome that is independent of stage or past treatment and influence patient management.
PMID: 16557205 [PubMed - in process]
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