DIAGNOSTIC-VALUE OF POSITRON-EMISSION-TOMOGRAPHY FOR DETECTING BREAST-CANCER

Positron emission tomography (PET) is an imaging method that employs r adionuclide and tomography techniques. PET has high sensitivity for de tecting breast cancer, both the primary tumor and axillary node metast asis. From June 1995 to November 1996 a total of 27 patients underwent breast operations based on PET results at Seoul National University H ospital. Whole-body PET images were obtained beginning 60 minutes afte r injection of 370 MBq (10 mCi) F-18-fluorodeoxyglucose. Regional scan s were also obtained with transmission images. We compared the PET res ults with those from the physical examination and mammography. All cas es were histologically confirmed. The diagnostic accuracy of PET was e xcellent for the primary tumor mass (97%) compared with that of the ph ysical examination (78%) and mammography (67%). For axillary lymph nod e metastasis, PET had outstanding detection accuracy (96%) compared wi th the physical examination and mammography (74% and 60%, respectively ). Whole-body PET scans made it possible to see all of the metastatic lesions at a glance in cases of metastatic or recurrent breast cancer. There was a probable correlation between the standard uptake value (S UV) and the number of axillary lymph node metastases, but in this stud y statistical significance was not proved because of the small number of cases. PET also could detect breast cancer in paraffin-augmented br easts. We concluded that PET is a highly sensitive, accurate diagnosti c tool for breast cancer and that SW, after more studies, could be use d as an important prognostic factor.