Abstract for presentation at 38th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Nuclear Medicine 2008

Comparison of Respiratory Gating in PET and Lung Tissue Pathology. It Makes a Difference if it Moves

  • Scott Evans, Department of Nuclear Medicine, P.E.T. & Ultrasound Westmead Hospital, Sydney, Australia
  • Dr Catherine Saunders, Department Nuclear Medicine, P.E.T. & Ultrasound Westmead Hospital Westmead, Australia
  • Dr George Larcos, Department of Nuclear Medicine, P.E.T. & Ultrasound Westmead Hospital, Sydney, Australia

    • Pleural involvement in lung cancer has important implications for staging. Accordingly we studied 111 patients (69M, 42F, 67.1 yrs) who underwent a staging 18F-FDG PET and a Respiratory gated PET image was acquired using List Mode and the previously acquired AC map for 5-10 minutes on a Siemens Biograph LSO PET/CT scanner. In 23 patients pathological correlation allowed evaluation of tumour pleural involvement with the lesion movement on the respiratory gated PET. Data were analysed by consensus of 2 physicians blinded to the pathology results.
    In all cases where pleural tumour involvement (n=4) was identified there was no movement on the respiratory gated PET. Lesion movement was present in 7 of 8 cases where the tumour did not involve the pleura and in 10 of 11 cases where the tumour abutted the pleura.
    In summary, movement of the tumour indicates either no or low likelihood of pleural infiltration and respiratory gated PET provides a simple accurate method for determination of possible pleural involvement which indicates a more advanced tumour staging.

    Conference Organiser - ICMS Pty Ltd