Fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose PET identification of cardiac metastasis arising from uterine cervical carcinoma

Cardiac metastasis of uterine cervical carcinoma is rare. We describe a pat ient with a past history of uterine cervical carcinoma who presented with m etastasis to the heart, lungs and distant lymph nodes 3 yr after surgery an d chemotherapy. Since the patient complained of chest pain and demonstrated electrocardiogram abnormalities, we performed echocardiography, electron b eam CT and MRI, which revealed a tumor in the right ventricular wall. The t umor was assessed by Ga-67 scintigraphy and F-18-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) P ET scanning. The mean differential F-18-FDG uptake ratio of the tumor was 7 .9, suggesting malignancy, which was later confirmed by myocardial biopsy. Information about the extent of the tumor and partial necrosis within it wa s provided by (18F)-FDG PET. Although both radionuclide imaging techniques also detected metastatic lesions in the lungs and lymph nodes, F-18-FDG PET scanning detected small lesions more sensitively than Ga-67 scintigraphy.