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Using 18F-FLT PET to distinguish between malignant and benign breast lesions with suspicious findings in mammography and breast ultrasound

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Abstract

Purpose

To investigate the diagnostic performance of 3′-deoxy-3′-[18F]fluorothymidine (18F-FLT) PET in women with suspicious breast findings on conventional imaging (mammography and breast ultrasound).

Methods

Twenty-eight women with suspicious findings on conventional imaging were enrolled. A whole-body PET/CT in the supine position (first PET) was performed 60 min after intravenous injection of 0.07 mCi/kg 18F-FLT, followed by a regional PET of the breast in the prone position (second PET). For each lesion, the SUVmax of the first PET (SUV1) and second PET (SUV2) were measured. For the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis of the diagnostic parameters, of the cutoff points with sensitivities >90 %, we chose the one with highest specificity as the optimal cutoff point to obtain the corresponding sensitivity and specificity.

Results

A total of 34 breast lesions (21 benign, 13 malignant) were analyzed. The SUV1 and SUV2 of the malignant lesions (median values 4.6 vs. 4.4, respectively) were higher than those of the benign lesions that had medians of 1.2 and 1.0, respectively (P = 0.0001). The area under the ROC curve (AUC) of SUV1 (0.905) showed no significant difference from that of SUV2 (0.912) (P = 0.77). The sensitivity and specificity using SUV1 = 1.24 as cutoff were 92.3 and 52.4 %, and those using SUV2 = 1.5 as cutoff were 92.3 and 66.7 %, respectively.

Conclusion

18F-FLT PET showed acceptable diagnostic performance for suspicious breast findings on conventional imaging, and SUV2 showed higher specificity than SUV1.

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Acknowledgments

The study was partially supported by National Science Council, Taiwan.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Imaging, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan

    Jane Wang & Tiffany Ting-Fang Shih

  2. Department of Radiology, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Jane Wang, Tiffany Ting-Fang Shih & Ruoh-Fang Yen

  3. Department of Surgery, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan

    Wen-Hung Kuo

  4. Department of Nuclear Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, 7 Chung-Shan South Road, Taipei, 100, Taiwan

    Ruoh-Fang Yen

Authors
  1. Jane Wang
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  2. Wen-Hung Kuo
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  3. Tiffany Ting-Fang Shih
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  4. Ruoh-Fang Yen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ruoh-Fang Yen.

Additional information

Trial Registry: NCT01713049.

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Wang, J., Kuo, WH., Shih, T.TF. et al. Using 18F-FLT PET to distinguish between malignant and benign breast lesions with suspicious findings in mammography and breast ultrasound. Ann Nucl Med 28, 941–949 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12149-014-0889-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12149-014-0889-7

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