Asia Oceania Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Biology (Jan 2024)

Comparison between 18F-FDG PET/CT and diffusion-weighted imaging in detection of invasive ductal breast carcinoma

  • Aynur Ozen,
  • Tarık Sayın,
  • Ozan Kandemir,
  • Ozgul Ekmekcioğlu,
  • Serdar Altınay,
  • Eylem Bastug,
  • Ali Muhammedoğlu,
  • Atilla Celik,
  • Ramazan Albayrak

DOI
https://doi.org/10.22038/aojnmb.2023.70534.1493
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 1
pp. 11 – 20

Abstract

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Objective(s): Breast carcinoma is the most common type of cancer in females. This study aims to compare fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) uptake pattern and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) value for the detection of the primary tumour and axillary metastases of invasive ductal breast carcinoma.Methods: This study included 40 breast carcinoma lesions taken from 39 patients. After staging by positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET/CT) and diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), breast surgery with axillary lymph node dissection or sentinel lymph node biopsy was performed.Results: Primary lesion detection rate for PET/CT and diffusion-weighted MRI was high with 39 of 40 lesions (97.5%). The sensitivity and specificity for the detection of metastatic lymph nodes in axilla were 40.9%, 88.9%, with 18F-FDG PET/CT scans and 40.9%, 83.3%, for dw-MRI, respectively. No significant correlation was detected between ADC and SUVmax or SUVmax ratios. Estrogen receptor (p=0.007) and progesterone receptor (p=0.036) positive patients had lower ADC values. Tumour SUVmax was lower in T1 than T2 tumour size (p=0.027) and progesterone receptor-positive patients (p=0.029). Tumour/background SUVmax was lower in progesterone receptor-positive patients (p=0.004). Tumour/liver SUVmax was higher in grade III patients (p=0.035) and progesterone receptor negative status (p=0.043).Conclusions: This study confirmed the high detection rate of breast carcinoma in both modalities. They have same sensitivity for the detection of axillary lymph node metastases, whereas the PET/CT scan had higher specificity. Furthermore, ADC, SUVmax and SUVmax ratios showed some statistical significance among the patient groups according to different pathological parameters.

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