Abstract
Positron emission tomography (PET) with [18F]-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (FDG) was prospectively investigated as a means of detecting metastatic disease in patients with oesophageal tumours and compared with computerized tomography (CT), with the surgical findings as a gold standard. Twenty-six patients with a malignant tumour of the oesophagus or gastroesophageal junction underwent CT and PET of the chest and the abdomen. Seven patients underwent laparoscopy to establish resectability. Fifteen patients underwent laparotomy without prior laparoscopy. Four patients did not undergo surgery. The primary tumour was visualized in 81% of patients with CT and in 96% with PET. Neither CT nor PET were suited to assess the extent of wall invasion. Surgically assessed nodal status corresponded in 62% with CT and in 90% with PET. Distant metastases were found in five patients with CT and in eight with PET. The diagnostic accuracy of CT in determining resectability was 65% and for PET 88%. For CT and PET together this was 92%. The present study indicates that FDG-PET can be of importance for staging patients with oesophageal tumours. PET has a higher sensitivity for nodal and distant metastases and a higher accuracy for determining respectability than CT. PET and CT together would have decreased ill-advised surgery by 90%.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 24 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $10.79 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kole, A., Plukker, J., Nieweg, O. et al. Positron emission tomography for staging of oesophageal and gastroesophageal malignancy. Br J Cancer 78, 521–527 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/bjc.1998.526
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/bjc.1998.526
This article is cited by
-
Role of fused PET/CT compared to the standard contrast-enhanced CT in the follow-up assessment of the treated gastric malignancy
Egyptian Journal of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine (2019)
-
Metabolic landscape of advanced gastric cancer according to HER2 and its prognostic implications
Gastric Cancer (2016)
-
The 100 most cited articles investigating the radiological staging of oesophageal and junctional cancer: a bibliometric analysis
Insights into Imaging (2016)
-
Radiopharmaceuticals as probes to characterize tumour tissue
European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (2015)
-
Bilan préthérapeutique des cancers de la jonction oesogastrique
Oncologie (2013)