Abstract
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Introduction: Recurrent triple-negative breast cancer is a rarely discussed area in oncology. 18F-FDG PET/CT plays an important role in detecting the recurrence of tumors in oncology. We aim to predict the diagnostic accuracy of 18F-FDG PET/CT in determining recurrence in patients with triple-negative breast cancer who already underwent treatment.
Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the 18F-FDG-PET/CT scans of triple-negative breast cancer patients who were referred to our department with clinical suspicion of recurrence from January 2017 to September 2021. A total of 14 patients were found. The scans were reviewed by two experienced nuclear medicine physicians. Histopathology reports of all patients were retrieved. Taking histopathology as the gold standard, true positive, false positive, true negative, and false negative were calculated.
Results: A total of 14 patients were included with a mean age of 47.78 years (standard deviation 8.1years ). On 18F-FDG PET/CT, 13 patients were reported to have a recurrence and one patient was reported to have no recurrence. Out of 13 patients with recurrence on 18F-FDG PET/CT, 10 had histopathological confirmation of recurrence (true positives), and 3 were not found to have recurrence on histopathology (false positives). No histopathological recurrence was found on 1 patient reported as negative in 18F-FDG PET/CT (true negative). The positive predictive value was found to be 76.92% and the negative predictive value was found to be 100%. The diagnostic accuracy of 18F-FDG PET/CT was found to be 78.57%. Sensitivity and specificity were of less value owing to a small sample size, which is a limitation of this study.
Conclusions: 18F-FDG PET/CT can serve as an important tool in the detection of recurrence in triple-negative breast cancer patients with clinical suspicion of the same. Studies with a larger patient population are required to further support our findings.