Abstract
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Objectives FDG PET/CT can be a useful technique for assessing tumor activity and predicting the malignant potential of certain tumors.The aim of this study is to investigate the cut-off value of maximum standardized uptake values (SUVmax) for the differentiation between benign and malignant solitary pancreatic lesion and the relationship between SUVmax and proliferation potential of pancreatic carcinoma with Ki-67 proliferation index (PI).
Methods This retrospective study involved 80 patients (44 women, 36 men, median age of 57 years) with solitary pancreatic lesion who underwent preoperative whole-body FDG PET/CT from January 2010 through September 2011. Lesions were stratified according to postoperative pathologic diagnosis, differentiation grade and immunohistochemical score of Ki-67 and SUVmax were compared between groups.
Results Of these 80 patients, 54 patients had a malignant lesion. The average SUVmax of malignant lesions was 6.3 ± 2.4, while that of benign lesions was 2.9 ± 2.0 and there was statistically significant difference between the both (P < 0.001). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis showed that a SUVmax cut-off value of 3.5 had high sensitivity (92.6%) and specificity (76.9%) for predicting pancreatic malignant lesions. According to the Ki-67 PI, malignant lesions were divided into three groups: low, intermediate and high PI group and the average SUVmax of these 3 groups were 5.0 ± 1.5, 6.4 ± 2.4 and 7.6 ± 2.9, respectively. The mean SUVmax differed significantly among these 3 group (P < 0.05).
Conclusions FDG PET/CT is a useful tool in the differentiation of solitary pancreatic lesion and SUVmax can be a marker to predict cell proliferation potential