1. FDG imaging with long-axial field-of-view PET/CT in patients with high blood glucose—a matched pair analysis
- Author
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Mingels, Clemens, Weissenrieder, Luis, Zeimpekis, Konstantinos, Sari, Hasan, Nardo, Lorenzo, Caobelli, Federico, Alberts, Ian, Rominger, Axel, and Pyka, Thomas
- Subjects
Biomedical and Clinical Sciences ,Clinical Sciences ,Biomedical Imaging ,Clinical Research ,Cancer ,Humans ,Positron Emission Tomography Computed Tomography ,Female ,Male ,Fluorodeoxyglucose F18 ,Middle Aged ,Aged ,Blood Glucose ,Matched-Pair Analysis ,Neoplasms ,Adult ,Radiopharmaceuticals ,Whole-body PET/CT ,LAFOV PET/CT ,Image quality ,High blood glucose ,Contrast-to-noise ratio ,Other Physical Sciences ,Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging ,Clinical sciences - Abstract
PurposeHigh blood glucose (hBG) in patients undergoing [18F]FDG PET/CT scans often results in rescheduling the examination, which may lead to clinical delay for the patient and decrease productivity for the department. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether long-axial field-of-view (LAFOV) PET/CT can minimize the effect of altered bio-distribution in hBG patients and is able to provide diagnostic image quality in hBG situations.Materials and methodsOncologic patients with elevated blood glucose (≥ 8.0 mmol/l) and normal blood glucose ( 11 mmol/l). Tracer uptake in the liver, muscle, and tumor was evaluated. Furthermore, image quality was compared between long acquisitions (ultra-high sensitivity mode, 360 s) on a LAFOV PET/CT and routine acquisitions equivalent to a short-axial field-of-view scanner (simulated (sSAFOV), obtained with high sensitivity mode, 120 s). Tumor-to-background ratio (TBR) and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) were used as the main image quality criteria.ResultsThirty-one hBG patients met the inclusion criteria and were matched with 31 nBG patients. Overall, liver uptake was significantly higher in hBG patients (SUVmean, 3.07 ± 0.41 vs. 2.37 ± 0.33; p = 0.03), and brain uptake was significantly lower (SUVmax, 7.58 ± 0.74 vs. 13.38 ± 3.94; p 11 mmol/l) patients examined with LAFOV PET/CT showed no statistical significant difference in CNR (19.84 ± 8.40 vs. 17.79 ± 9.3, p = 0.08).ConclusionWhile elevated blood glucose (> 11 mmol) negatively affected TBR and CNR in our cohort, the images from a LAFOV PET-scanner had comparable CNR to PET-images acquired from nBG patients using sSAFOV PET/CT. Therefore, we argue that oncologic patients with increased blood sugar levels might be imaged safely with LAFOV PET/CT when rescheduling is not feasible.
- Published
- 2024