We excluded patients who had undergone chemotherapy or radiation therapy, patients who had not undergone pathologic evaluation, and who had no supraclavicular lymph node enlargement. Our institutional review board approved our research study and did not require informed consent from the patients for this retrospective study. To our knowledge, the usefulness of 18F-FDG PET/CT in the characterization and detection of supraclavicular lymph node metastases from various malignancies has not yet been reported.Īccordingly, the purpose of this study is to compare the usefulness of 18F-FDG PET/CT, contrast-enhanced CT (CECT), and US in the diagnosis of metastatic supraclavicular lymph nodes.įrom January 2008 to September 2009, 158 consecutive patients with suspected or proven malignancy underwent US, CECT, and 18F-FDG PET/CT examinations. In combining functional PET data and morphologic CT data, 18F-FDG PET/CT studies have produced promising initial oncologic imaging results ( 17, 18, 19). However, some limitations exist for the use of 18F-FDG PET alone. Moreover, 18F-FDG PET is more accurate than CT for detecting or excluding nodal disease ( 12, 13, 14, 15, 16). Several studies have reported on CT and US methods for assessing supraclavicular lymphadenopathy ( 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11).ġ8F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography ( 18F-FDG PET) is a noninvasive method that plays an important role in the evaluation of lymph node metastasis in patients with various malignancies. These investigators have suggested that noninvasive imaging techniques such as CT and ultrasound (US) can be used to improve the detection of lymph node metastasis. These lymph nodes are easily accessible by palpation and their enlargement may be the first sign of a metastatic tumor, mostly from lung, head and neck, breast, esophageal, gastric, pancreatic, gynecologic, and prostate cancers ( 1).Įxamination of the supraclavicular lymph node has traditionally been performed by palpation however, this method has been found to be unreliable in the literature ( 2, 3, 4, 5). The supraclavicular lymph nodes comprise a final common pathway of metastatic nodal involvement from various malignancies.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |