Radiology Case Reports (Dec 2020)

Pulmonary large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma (LCNEC) with confirmed liver metastases negative on 18F-FDG and 68Ga-DOTATATE PET

  • Gaia Ninatti,
  • Heying Duan, MD,
  • Valentina Ferri, MS,
  • Brock A. Martin, MD,
  • Carina Mari Aparici, MD

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 15, no. 12
pp. 2698 – 2700

Abstract

Read online

Lung neuroendocrine neoplasms (NENs) encompass the low-, intermediate-, and high-grade entities. Differentiated NENs overexpress somatostatin receptors, which are targeted by 68Ga-DOTA-conjugated peptides in molecular imaging with positron emission tomography. Less differentiated NENs may have lost their expression of somatostatin receptors and thus show lower uptake of 68Ga-DOTA-peptides; however, these tumors express GLUT-1 and can be imaged with (18)F-fluordeoxyglucose (FDG).We report the case of a 72-year-old patient with a poorly differentiated, high grade lung NEN, which was 18F-FDG-positive at initial diagnosis. After treatment and remission, the patient had histologically confirmed relapse in the liver. Interestingly, these hepatic metastases did not demonstrated radiopharmaceutical uptake at neither 18F-FDG nor 68Ga-DOTATATE positron emission tomography/computed tomography.

Keywords