PURPOSE: We review acquisition 18F-choline PET/CT methodology, evaluate a new 18F-choline acquisition protocol for prostate cancer (PC), and propose a standardized acquisition protocol on 18F-choline in PC patients.
MATERIALS: Two hundred fifty consecutive PC patients (mean age 72 years, mean PSA 7.9 ng/mL) were prospectively evaluated with 18F-choline PET/CT. An early scan of the pelvis (1 bed position of 4 minutes) was followed by a whole-body scan at 1 hour. Early and 1 delayed hour images of the pelvis were compared.
RESULTS: Twenty-one percent of patients (n = 57) with positive 18F-choline demonstrated abnormal local uptake; 18% of patients (n = 45) showed distant localization only; 23% of patients (n = 53) had both local and distant localization; 38% of patients (n = 38) did not show any pathological uptake. All early images showed absence of radioactive urine in ureters, bladder, or urethra with satisfactory visualization of the prostatic region. Considering the group of patients with local uptake only, the prostatic region uptake, confirmed by late images, was better visualized in the early phase in 32/57 cases (SUVmax 12.4 ± 3.2 vs. 7.3 ± 5.2, P < 0.01). Instead distant lesions were visualized on both early and late images with similar uptakes values (SUVmax 9.8 ± 4.1 vs. 10.3 ± 4.5, P = N.S.).
CONCLUSION: Early 18F-choline images improve pelvic prostate cancer lesion clarity. All pathologic pelvic deposits (prostate, lymph nodes, bone) were visualized both in the early and late images.
Written by:
Chondrogiannis S, Marzola MC, Grassetto G, Rampin L, Massaro A, Colletti PM, Rubello D. Are you the author?
Department of Nuclear Medicine, PET/CT Centre, "Santa Maria della Misericordia Hospital", Rovigo, Italy; Department of Radiology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA.
Reference: Clin Nucl Med. 2015 Feb 4. Epub ahead of print.
PubMed Abstract
PMID: 25742236