The utility of 18F-FDG PET/CT in brain tumours diagnosis.

Background: The purpose of the study was to discuss whether 2-deoxy-2-[18F]fluoro-D-glucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (18F-FDG PET/CT) study protocol should include brain imaging. Materials and methods: Analysis of international societies recommendations compared with the original data obtained in over 1000 consecutive torso and brain 18F-FDG PET/CT studies collected in 2010. Results: According to the international societies recommendations, the 18F-FDG should not be the radiotracer of choice considering the brain region PET/CT study. However, it can be performed as an additional brain imaging tool. Based on at least a 3-year follow-up, we detected 8 cases of suspicious brain findings and no primary lesion among over 1000 consecutive torso and brain 18F-FDG PET/CT scans performed in 2010. However, in 5 out of 8 patients, the brain lesion was the only metastasis detected, affecting further therapy. Conclusions: The 18F-FDG PET/CT study may help detect malignant brain lesions and, therefore, including brain region imaging into the study protocol should be considered.

Detection of clinically silent brain lesions in [18F]FDG PET/CT study in oncological patients: analysis of over 10,000 studies.

The study aimed to show that including the brain region into the standard 2-deoxy-2-[18F]fluoro-D-glucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography ([18F]FDG PET/CT) study protocol may result in detecting clinically silent brain tumours. We retrospectively analyzed the group of 10,378 from the total of 12,011 consecutive patients who underwent the torso and brain [18F]FDG PET/CT scanning, considering an ability of the method to evaluate undetected before brain tumours in patients diagnosed and treated in our institution. While collecting the database, we followed the inclusion criteria: at least 1-year of follow-up, a full medical history collected in our institution, histopathologic examination or other studies available to confirm the type of observed lesion, and the most importantly-no brain lesions reported in the patients' medical data. In this study, performing the torso and brain [18F]FDG PET/CT imaging helped to detect clinically silent primary and metastatic brain tumours in 129 patients, and the benign lesions in 24 studied cases, in whom no suspicious brain findings were reported prior to the examination. In conclusion, including the brain region into the standard [18F]FDG PET/CT protocol can be considered helpful in detecting clinically silent malignant and benign brain tumours.

Primary and Metastatic Brain Tumours Assessed with the Brain and Torso [18F]FDG PET/CT Study Protocol-10 Years of Single-Institutional Experiences.

According to the international societies' recommendations, the 2-deoxy-2-[18F]fluoro-D-glucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography ([18F]FDG PET/CT) technique should not be used as the method of choice in brain tumour diagnosis. Therefore, the brain region can be omitted during standard [18F]FDG PET/CT scanning. We performed comprehensive literature research and analysed results from 14,222 brain and torso [18F]FDG PET/CT studies collected in 2010-2020. We found 131 clinically silent primary and metastatic brain tumours and 24 benign lesions. We concluded that the brain and torso [18F]FDG PET/CT study provides valuable data that may support therapeutic management by detecting clinically silent primary and metastatic brain tumours.