Comparison of CE-FDG-PET/CT with CE-FDG-PET/MR in the evaluation of osseous metastases in breast cancer patients

O. A. Catalano, E. Nicolai, B. R. Rosen, A. Luongo, M. Catalano, C. Iannace, A. Guimaraes, M. G. Vangel, U. Mahmood, A. Soricelli, M. Salvatore

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

97 Scopus citations

Abstract

Background:Despite improvements in treatments, metastatic breast cancer remains difficult to cure. Bones constitute the most common site of first-time recurrence, occurring in 40-75% of cases. Therefore, evaluation for possible osseous metastases is crucial. Technetium 99 (99 Tc) bone scintigraphy and fluorodexossyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET)-computed tomography (PET-CT) are the most commonly used techniques to assess osseous metastasis. PET magnetic resonance (PET-MR) imaging is an innovative technique still under investigation. We compared the capability of PET-MR to that of same-day PET-CT to assess osseous metastases in patients with breast cancer.Methods:One hundred and nine patients with breast cancer, who underwent same-day contrast enhanced (CE)-PET-CT and CE-PET-MR, were evaluated. CE-PET-CT and CE-PET-MR studies were interpreted by consensus by a radiologist and a nuclear medicine physician. Correlations with prior imaging and follow-up studies were used as the reference standard. Binomial confidence intervals and a χ 2 test were used for categorical data, and paired t-test was used for the SUVmax data; a non-informative prior Bayesian approach was used to estimate and compare the specificities.Results:Osseous metastases affected 25 out 109 patients. Metastases were demonstrated by CE-PET-CT in 22 out of 25 patients (88%±7%), and by CE-PET-MR in 25 out of 25 patients (100%). CE-PET-CT revealed 90 osseous metastases and CE-PET-MR revealed 141 osseous metastases (P<0.001). The estimated sensitivity of CE-PET-CT and CE-PET-MR were 0.8519 and 0.9630, respectively. The estimated specificity for CE-FDG-PET-MR was 0.9884. The specificity of CE-PET-CT cannot be determined from patient-level data, because CE-PET-CT yielded a false-positive lesion in a patient who also had other, true metastases.Conclusions:CE-PET-MR detected a higher number of osseous metastases than did same-day CE-PET-CT, and was positive for 12% of the patients deemed osseous metastasis-negative on the basis of CE-PET-CT.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1452-1460
Number of pages9
JournalBritish Journal of Cancer
Volume112
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 28 2015

Keywords

  • PET-CT
  • PET-MR
  • breast cancer
  • osseous metastases
  • skeletal metastases

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Oncology
  • Cancer Research

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