The Clinical Roles of 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose Positron Emission Tomography/Computerized Tomography for Urological Disease / 대한비뇨기과학회지

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: We evaluate the clinical roles of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computerized tomography(18F-FDG PET/CT) for diagnosing disease in the urogenital tract, and we compared this with the other established radiologic and pathologic diagnoses. MATERIALS AND METHODS: From June 2006 to June 2007, the total number of subjects who underwent 18F-FDG PET/CT was 4,438. The mean patient age was 57.4+/-7.6 years and the ratio of males to females was 1.281. During the study period, except for 152 patients who had been given a diagnosis of urologic tumor, 614(14.3%) healthy subjects and 3,672(85.7%) patients with non-urologic tumors were enrolled. The results of detecting urologic disease by 18F-FDG PET/CT were compared with the results of detecting urologic disease by conventional imaging techniques and the postoperative histopathological diagnoses. RESULTS: With including 147 healthy subjects and 251 non-urologic tumor patients, 398 (9.3%) urologic diseases were detected on 18F-FDG PET/CT. Diseases of the kidney, adrenal and prostate were frequently found(215, 95 and 52 patients, respectively). A thorough examination was indicated for 153(3.6%) of the patients as a result of positive findings that suggested possible tumor. A total 93 urologic cancers were confirmed, and the overall positive predictive value of 18F-FDG PET/CT was 60.7%. The positive predictive value for adrenal, kidney, bladder and prostate cancer were 87.7%, 73.3%, 57.1% and 14.0%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: 18F-FDG PET/CT was not superior to conventional imaging for making the diagnosis of urologic disease. But 18F-FDG PET/CT was more predictive for adrenal and renal tumor than for bladder and prostate tumor. So, urologic tumor that is incidentally detected on 18F-FDG PET/ CT, and especially adrenal and renal tumor, should be closely evaluated.