¹⁸F-fluorodeoxyglucose PET/CT for detection of disease in patients with prostate-specific antigen relapse following radical treatment of a local-stage prostate cancer

The present study aimed to retrospectively review the contribution of ¹⁸F-fluorodeoxygluose-positron emission tomography/computed tomography (¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT) in the assessment of biochemical recurrence in patients with a diagnosis of local-stage prostate cancer (PCa) who underwent radical prostatectomy (RP) or received external beam radiation therapy (EBRT). A total of 28 patients who underwent RP or received EBRT for PCa between July 2007 and April 2013, and who underwent ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT scanning for re-staging due to biochemical recurrence were included in the present study. The mean age of the patients was 65.07 years and the standard deviation was 7.51 years (range, 51-82 years). Of the 28 patients, 23 (82.1%) underwent RP and 5 (17.9%) received definitive EBRT. Prior to scanning, all patients were required to fast for 6 h, and ~1 h after the intravenous injection of 555 MBq ¹⁸F-FDG, whole-body PET scans were performed from the skull base to the upper thighs. Whole-body CT scans were performed in the craniocaudal direction. ¹⁸F-FDG PET images were reconstructed using CT data for attenuation correction. Histopathology examination or clinical follow-up was used to confirm any suspicious recurrent or metastatic lesions. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and accuracy of ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT were 61.6, 75.0, 61.6, 75.0 and 71.4%, respectively. ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT can detect local and distant metastases with a high accuracy in the assessment of biochemical recurrence, thus detecting occult metastases and allowing the re-staging of PCa in the patients receiving definitive treatment. It is considered that ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT may be useful in re-assessing the patients with PCa receiving definitive treatment.