Nuclear Medicine Communications

OBJECTIVE: Since the end of 2019, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) virus has infected millions of people, of whom a significant group suffers from sequelae from COVID-19, termed long COVID. As more and more patients emerge with long COVID who have symptoms of fatigue, myalgia and joint pain, we must examine potential biomarkers to find quantifiable parameters to define the underlying mechanisms and enable response monitoring. The aim of this study is to investigate the potential added value of [18F]FDG-PET/computed tomography (CT) for this group of long COVID patients...

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OBJECTIVE: Impaired lung function is associated with an increased risk for cognitive decline. F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET is a well-known neurodegenerative biomarker for dementia. We investigated the association between lung and brain function using FDG PET in patients with lung cancer. METHODS: A random sub-sample of 102 patients with lung cancer and without a self-reported history of neuropsychiatric disorders were recruited and underwent both lung function tests and FDG PET scans before treatment...

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to determine the optimal β value for clinical use in digital 68Ga-prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA-11) PET/computed tomography (CT) imaging. METHODS: 68Ga PSMA PET/CT of 21 patients with prostate cancer were reconstructed using block-sequential regularized expectation maximization (β value of 400-1600) and ordered subsets expectation maximization. Nine independent blinded readers evaluated each reconstruction for overall image quality, noise level and lesion detectability...

OBJECTIVE: Bone is considered as the third most common site of metastases, besides lung and liver. Early detection of skeletal metastases aids in better management of skeletal-related events. In the present study cold kit-based 2,2',2''-(10-(2-((diphosphonomethyl)amino)-2-oxoethyl)-1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane-1,4,7-triyl) triacetic acid (BPAMD) was labeled with 68Ga. The radiolabeling parameters and clinical evaluation in patients with suspected bone metastases were compared with routinely used 99mTc-methylenediphosphonate (99mTc-MDP)...

PURPOSE: Rarely, well-differentiated gastro-entero-pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP NETs) can have positive uptake on 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose-PET/computerized tomography (18F-FDG-PET/CT), with or without a positive 68Ga-PET/CT. We aim to evaluate the diagnostic role of 18F-FDG-PET/CT in patients with well-differentiated GEP NETs. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed a chart of patients diagnosed with GEP NETs between 2014 and 2021, at the American University of Beirut Medical Center, who have low (G1; Ki-67 ≤2) or intermediate (G2; and Ki-67 >2-≤20) well-differentiated tumors with positive findings on FDG-PET/CT...

OBJECTIVES: Point spread function (PSF) correction and time-of-flight (TOF) can improve the quality of PET images. None have directly assessed the visual effects of these methods in brain PET images and evaluated the image quality from these methods based on the relationship between the number of updates and noise level. The present study aimed to clarify the effects of PSF and TOF on the visual contrast level and pixel values of brain PET images using an experimental phantom. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The visual contrast level was evaluated based on the sum of edge strengths...

AIM: VARSKIN provides a convenient way of calculating skin dose from predefined geometries but the models are limited to concentric shapes such as discs, cylinders and point sources. The aim of this article is to use the Geant4 Monte Carlo code to independently compare the cylindrical geometries available in VARSKIN to a more realistic droplet models obtained from photography. It may then be possible to recommend an appropriate cylinder model that can be used to represent a droplet within acceptable accuracy...

PURPOSE: Improvements in molecular breast imaging (MBI) have increased the use of MBI as adjunct diagnostic modality and alternative to MRI. We aimed to assess the value of MBI in patients with equivocal breast lesions on conventional imaging, especially in terms of its ability to rule out malignancy. METHODS: We selected patients who underwent MBI in addition to conventional diagnostics due to equivocal breast lesions between 2012 and 2015. All patients underwent digital mammography, target ultrasound and MBI...

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the role of 18 fluorodeoxyglucose (18F) PET/MRI (18F-FDG PET/MRI) for detecting bone metastasis in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). PATIENTS AND METHODS: Between May 2017 and May 2021, 58 histologically proven NPC patients who underwent both 18F-FDG PET/MRI and 99mTc-MDP planar bone scintigraphy (PBS) for tumor staging were included. With the exception of the head, the skeletal system was classified into four groups: the spine, the pelvis, the thorax and the appendix...

OBJECTIVE: [18F]FE-PE2I (FE-PE2I) is a new radiotracer for dopamine transporter (DAT) imaging with PET. The aim of this study was to evaluate the visual interpretation of FE-PE2I images for the diagnosis of idiopathic Parkinsonian syndrome (IPS). The inter-rater variability, sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic accuracy for visual interpretation of striatal FE-PE2I compared to [123I]FP-CIT (FP-CIT) single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) was evaluated. METHODS: Thirty patients with newly onset parkinsonism and 32 healthy controls with both an FE-PE2I and FP-CIT were included in the study...

INTRODUCTION: The calculation of resin yttrium-90 (90Y-) microspheres activity for selective internal radiotherapy (SIRT) needs to be investigated. METHODS AND MATERIALS: Analyses using Simplicit90Y (Boston Scientific, Natick, Massachusetts, USA) dosimetry software were performed to determine the concordance between the absorbed doses to the tumor (DT1 and DT2) and healthy liver (DN1 and DN2) during the pre-treatment and the post-treatment phases. An optimized calculation of the activity of 90Y-microspheres performed using dosimetry software was applied retrospectively to assess the impact of this calculation method on the treatment...

OBJECTIVE: 18F-FDG PET can be used to calculate the threshold value of myocardial volume based on the mean standardised uptake value (SUVmean) of the aorta to detect highly integrated regions of cardiac sarcoidosis. The present study investigated the myocardial volume when the position and number of volumes of interest (VOIs) were changed in the aorta. METHODS: The present study examined PET/computed tomography images of 47 consecutive cardiac sarcoidosis cases...

Whole-body bone scintigraphy remains widely used in nuclear medicine as it is a relatively inexpensive and quick test in which the whole body can be imaged with good sensitivity. However, one downside of the technique is its lack of specificity. The difficulty comes when there is a single 'hot spot' which usually requires further anatomical imaging to identify the cause and differentiate malignant from benign lesions. In this situation, hybrid imaging with single-photon emission computed tomography/computed tomography (SPECT/CT) can be a useful problem solver...

INTRODUCTION: Texture and radiomic analysis characterize the tumor's phenotype and evaluate its microenvironment in quantitative terms. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of textural features of 18F-FDG PET/computed tomography (CT) images in differentiating hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and hepatic metastasis in patients with suspected liver tumors. METHODS: This is a retrospective, single-center study of 30 patients who underwent FDG PET/CT for the characterization of liver lesions or for staging a suspected liver tumor...

BACKGROUND: Sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy in cutaneous melanoma patients evaluates the regional draining basin for occult micrometastatic disease. Occasionally, nonidentification of SLN impairs the acquisition of this important prognostic factor. OBJECTIVES: To investigate the outcomes of melanoma patients with negative lymphoscintigraphic findings and patients who underwent SLN biopsy from 2004 to 2015 (n = 1200) were retrospectively reviewed for tumor characteristics and clinical outcomes...

BACKGROUND: This work aimed to determine the implications of the variability in estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) for the prediction of measured GFR (mGFR) for selection of sampling time-point in single-sample 99mTc-diethylene-triamine-pentaacetate (DTPA) mGFR. METHODS: Patient studies were used to compare eGFR and mGFR (n = 282). The eGFR was calculated using the Chronic Kidney Disease Epidemiology Collaboration 2009 equation, from serum creatinine values measured in the laboratory (n = 27) or using a point-of-care testing device (n = 255)...

OBJECTIVE: Intratumor heterogeneity has prognostic value in cervical cancer, which can be depicted on 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) PET/computed tomography (PET/CT) and then quantitatively characterized by texture features. This study aimed to evaluate the discriminative performance and predictive ability of the texture features in determining lymph node involvement in cervical cancer. METHODS: A total of 101 patients with newly diagnosed cervical cancer, who underwent pre-treatment whole-body 18F-FDG PET/CT imaging were retrospectively recruited...

Giant cell arteritis (GCA) is a medical emergency, which can lead to irreversible blindness and other ischaemic vascular events if left untreated. Prompt access to specialist assessment, diagnostics in the form of a fast-track pathway (FTP) and access to appropriate treatment are key factors in preventing morbidity associated with this disease. Recent developments in vascular imaging prompted review of our management of GCA patients. Here, we present the newly implemented FTP in GCA at the University College London Hospital, with added vascular imaging in the form of temporal artery ultrasound (TAUS) and [18F]-fluorodeoxyglucose PET-computed tomography (18F-FDG PET-CT) with temporal artery biopsy...

Personalised cancer treatment is of growing importance and can be achieved via targeted radionuclide therapy. Radionuclides with theranostic properties are proving to be clinically effective and are widely used because diagnostic imaging and therapy can be accomplished using a single formulation that avoids additional procedures and unnecessary radiation burden to the patient. For diagnostic imaging, single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) or positron emission tomography (PET) is used to obtain functional information noninvasively by detecting the gamma (γ) rays emitted from the radionuclide...