Journal
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NUCLEAR MEDICINE AND MOLECULAR IMAGING
Volume 30, Issue 3, Pages 396-402Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s00259-002-1075-z
Keywords
PET; fluorodeoxyglucose; germ cell tumours; staging
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Relapse occurs in 30% of patients with stage I non-seminomatous germ cell tumours (NSGCT) within I year after orchiectomy. Whole-body positron emission tomography with fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG-PET) may detect small metastases when standard staging with computed tomography (CT) and tumour markers is negative. In this study, 46 patients underwent FDG-PET after staging with normal CT and tumour markers. To exclude diagnostic test bias and workup bias, all patients had routine follow-up with repeated CT and tumour marker evaluation, even though the initial FDG-PET was positive. Thirty-six patients have remained disease free with a median follow-up of 48 months (range 24-76). Ten patients (22%) suffered disease relapse after a median of 2 months (range 1-8), and of these, seven had a true positive initial PET with increased uptake of FDG indicating metastatic disease. There were three false negative and no false positive PET scans. The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of PET were 70%, 100% and 93%, respectively. The sensitivity of detecting small retroperitoneal metastases was 88%. The negative and positive predictive values were 92% and 100%, respectively, whereas the negative predictive value of standard staging procedures was 78%. FDG-PET thus seems to be superior to conventional staging (P=0.06) in stage I NSGCT. This non-invasive method may improve the overall management of patients with NSGCT.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available