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Objectives: The purpose of this study was to compare the diagnostic value of a one-step to a two-step staging algorithm utilizing 18F-FDG PET/MRI in breast cancer patients.Methods: A total of 38 patients (37 females and one male, mean age 57 ± 10 years; range 31-78 years) with newly diagnosed, histopathologically proven breast cancer were prospectively enrolled in this trial. All PET/MRI examinations were assessed for local tumor burden and metastatic spread in two separate reading sessions: (1) One-step algorithm comprising supine whole-body 18F-FDG PET/MRI, and (2) Two-step algorithm comprising a dedicated prone 18F-FDG breast PET/MRI and supine whole-body 18F-FDG PET/MRI.Results: On a patient based analysis the two-step algorithm correctly identified 37 out of 38 patients with breast carcinoma (97%), while five patients were missed by the one-step 18F-FDG PET/MRI algorithm (33/38; 87% correct identification). On a lesion-based analysis 56 breast cancer lesions were detected in the two-step algorithm and 44 breast cancer lesions could be correctly identified in the one-step 18F-FDG PET/MRI (79%), resulting in statistically significant differences between the two algorithms (p = 0.0015). For axillary lymph node evaluation sensitivity, specificity and accuracy was 93%, 95 and 94%, respectively. Furthermore, distant metastases could be detected in seven patients in both algorithms.Conclusion: The results demonstrate the necessity and superiority of a two-step 18F-FDG PET/MRI algorithm, comprising dedicated prone breast imaging and supine whole-body imaging, when compared to the one-step algorithm for local and whole-body staging in breast cancer patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To investigate and compare the diagnostic performance of 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) PET/MR and MR alone in whole-body primary staging and restaging of patients with rectal cancer. Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed to evaluate diagnostic accuracies of combined reading of PET/MR and MR alone in T, N and M staging against the reference standard. Inter-observer agreement regarding TNM staging was calculated separately for PET/MR and MR alone. Results: A total of 39 studies of 34 patients could be evaluated. Diagnostic accuracies of PET/MR and MR alone were the same in locoregional T staging. For predicting N+ stage, the specificity of combined reading of PET and MR (0.917 and 0.833 for reader 1 and 2, respectively) was slightly higher than MR alone (0.833 and 0.75) without significantly increasing the overall accuracy (0.783 vs. 0.783 and 0.783 vs. 0.739). For detecting distant metastasis, the sensitivities of PET/MR and MR alone were shown equal (1.0 vs. 1.0 and 0.938 vs. 0.938), while the specificity of PET/MR was marginally lower (0.87 vs. 0.913 and 0.826 vs. 0.87). The inter-observer agreements were good to excellent in M (κ = 0.64 and 0.637 for PET/MR and MR alone, p < 0.001) and N staging (0.819 and 0.738, p < 0.001).Conclusion: PET did not yield a significant improvement in diagnostic accuracy of PET/MR in TNM staging of rectal cancer, since MR alone facilitated accurate classification of disease stage with good to excellent inter-observer agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]