MONDAY, Oct. 1 (HealthDay News) -- Because invasive thoracic procedures may cause an increased uptake of radiotracer on positron emission tomography (PET) scans that could be misinterpreted as evidence of malignancy, clinicians should have patients undergo PET scans before such procedures, according to study findings published in the September issue of the Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
Margaret M. Johnson, M.D., of the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., and colleagues reviewed the imaging studies of 81 patients who had increased fluorine 18-labeled fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) uptake on PET scans but showed no corresponding abnormalities suggestive of malignancy on computed tomography scans.
The researchers found that 45 (56 percent) of subjects underwent PET scan within four weeks after bronchoscopy and 13 (29 percent) of these subjects had increased FDG uptake on PET scans. They determined that the bronchoscopic procedure was the most likely cause of increased uptake in three (23 percent) of the 13 PET scans.
"Invasive thoracic procedures may cause increased metabolic activity to be visualized on PET scans," the authors conclude. "Clinicians must appreciate the potential for this phenomenon if they are to avoid misinterpreting procedure-induced increased radiotracer uptake on PET scans as evidence of malignancy. Performing diagnostic and staging PET before invasive thoracic procedures can eliminate the potential for clinical misjudgment."
Abstract
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