The clinical use of positron emission tomography–computed tomography in breast cancer management and follow-up

Introduction
Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related death in women. Breast cancer affects women of all ages, races, ethnicities, socioeconomic strata, and geographic locales. Once breast cancer is diagnosed, the tumor stage has to be accurately determined before therapy is chosen and the prognosis known.


Aim
Whole-body 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) positron emission tomography–computed tomography (PET/CT) improves staging of patients with breast cancer and significantly changes the therapeutic management of these patients.


Patients and methods
This study was carried out in Cairo Scan Radiology Center from March 2018 to September 2018 for 34 female patients. The age ranged from 37 to 79 years, and the mean age was 56 years. All data were acquired with a combined PET/CT in-line system.


Results
Combined 18-FDG PET/CT provides the ability to combine functional and morphologic information in a single study. So, combined PET/CT sensitivity was 98.11% compared with 81.7% for CT alone, with P value of combined PET/CT compared with CT alone being 0.002.


Conclusion
Combined 18-FDG PET/CT provides the ability to combine functional and morphologic information in a single study, thus becoming a powerful imaging modality for diagnosis and staging of breast cancer.