• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.42 no.sup1
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• pp.71-75
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• 2008

The prevalence of pancreas cancer is increasing. Due to difficulty in detecting early stage disease, the prognosis of pancreas cancer is known to be poor. Clinical use of FDG PET in pancreas has been reported. FDG PET showed good performance in diagnosing pancreas cancer, and is expected to be useful in staging and detecting recurrence.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.357-360
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• 2009

Malignant mesothelioma of the peritoneum is a rare neoplasm with a rapidly fatal course. The tumour arises from the mesothelial cells lining the pleura and peritoneum or, rarely, in the pericardium or tunica vaginalis. This neoplasm is characterized by being difficult to diagnose, having a rapid evolution and a poor response to therapy. Mesothelioma is very glucose avid, and malignant pleural mesothelioma has been reported concerning the utility of F-18 FDG PET or PET/CT. But little has been known about the imaging finding of malignant peritoneal mesothelioma on F-18 FDG PET/CT. We report a case of malignant peritoneal mesothelioma mimicking peritoneal carcinomatosis of F-18 FDG PET/CT.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.240-244
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• 2009

F-18 FDG PET is a metabolic imaging modality that is efficacious in staging and assessment of treatment response for variety of lymphomas. We report usefulness of F-18 FOG PET/Cl in evaluating severity of the disease and response to therapy in a patient with subcutaneous panniculitis- like T-cell lymphoma (SPTCL). Here we describe a case of SPTCL in 24-year-old man who had wide spread firm and tender nodular lesions with increased F-18 FOG uptake. After chemotherapy follow up F-18 FDG PET/CT image shows disseminated malignancy and then the patient died with hemophagocytic syndrome. This report suggests that F-18 FDG PET/CT may be useful in determining disease activity at the time of initial diagnosis, after treatment, and evaluating a suspected outcome of SPTCL.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.456-463
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• 2008

Purpose: We evaluated the incidence and malignant risk of focal breast lesions incidentally detected by $^{18}F-FDG$ PET/CT. Various PET/CT findings of the breast lesions were also analyzed to improve the differentiation between benign from malignant focal breast lesions. Materials & Methods: The subjects were 3,768 consecutive $^{18}F-FDG$ PET/CT exams performed in adult females without a history of breast cancer. A focal breast lesion was defined as a focal $^{18}F-FDG$ uptake or a focal nodular lesion on CT image irrespective of $^{18}F-FDG$ uptake in the breasts. The maximum SUV and CT pattern of focal breast lesions were evaluated, and were compared with final diagnosis. Results: The incidence of focal breast lesions on PET/CT in adult female subjects was 1.4% (58 lesions in 53 subjects). In finally confirmed 53 lesions of 48 subjects, 11 lesions of 8 subjects (20.8%) were proven to be malignant. When the PET/CT patterns suggesting benignancy (maximum attenuation value>75 HU or <30HU; standard deviation of mean attenuation > 20) were added as diagnostic criteria of PET/CT to differentiate benign from malignant breast lesions along with maximum SUV, the area under ROC curve of PET/CT was significantly increased compared with maximum SUV alone ($0.680{\pm}0.093$ vs. $0.786{\pm}0.076$, p<0.05). Conclusion: The malignant risk of focal breast lesions incidentally found on $^{18}F-FDG$ PET/CT is not low, deserving further diagnostic confirmation. Image interpretation considering both $^{18}F-FDG$ uptake and PET/CT pattern may be helpful to improve the differentiation from malignant and benign focal breast lesion.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.42 no.sup1
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• pp.134-136
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• 2008

Neuroblastoma is the most common extracranial solid tumor in children. In diagnostic assessment of neuroblastoma, $^{18}F-FDG$ PET has been reported to have high diagnostic performance, especially, very high sensitivity in staging, restaging, and assessment of therapeutic efficacy. In comparison with conventional diagnostic imaging modalities including a, bone scan, and MIBG scan, $^{18}F-FDG$ PET showed better diagnostic performance. According to clinical research data hitherto, $^{18}F-FDG$ PET is expected to be an effective diagnostic tool in the management of neuroblastoma.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.42 no.sup1
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• pp.6-13
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• 2008

Head and neck cancer is the sixth most common type of human cancer worldwide. Squamous cell carcinoma is the most common cancer of the head and neck. Since $^{18}F-FDG$ PET is very sensitive to detecting squamous cell carcinoma, it has been widely used in patients with head and neck cancers for initial staging, management of recurrent cancers, and therapeutic monitoring. According to clinical research data, $^{18}F-FDG$ PET is expected to be a very helpful diagnostic tool in the management of head and neck cancer.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.66-67
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• 2007

POEMS syndrome is a rare disorder, also known as Crow-Fukase, PEP or Takatsuki syndrome. The acronym, POEMS, represents polyneuropathy, organomegaly, endocrinopathy, M protein and skin change. However, there are associated features not included in the acronym such as sclerotic bone lesions, Castleman disease, papilledema, thromobocytosis, peripheral edema, ascites, effusion, polycythemia, fatigue and clubbing. In most cases, osseous lesions in POEMS syndrome present as an isolated sclerotic deposit and that reveal as osteosclerotic myeloma. Several cases of $^{18}F-FDG$ PET in multiple myeloma involvements were reported, but there was no previous literature that reported FDG PET findings in POEMS syndrome. We describe here a 66-year-old patient with POEMS syndrome who underwent $^{18}F-FDG$ PET/CT image.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.484-492
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• 1996

To detect ischemic tissue in experimental model of cerebral ischemia made by middle cerebral artery(MCA)-occlusion, we acquired triple image of $^{99m}Tc$-glucarate, [$^{18}F$]fluoro-deoxyglucose (FDG), and 2,3,5- triphenyltetrazolium (TTC) staining. We made cerebral infarction either with reperfusion (after occlusion of 2 hours) or without reperfusion in 10 Sprague-Dawley rats by inserting thread to MCA through internal carotid artery. After 22 hours, we injected 740 MBq of $^{99m}Tc$-glucarate and 55.5 MBq of [$^{18}F$]FDG through tail vein. Each 1 mm slice of rat brains was frozen and exposed to imaging plate for 20 minutes in freezer to get an [$^{18}F$]FDG image. After 20 hours enough to fade radioactivity of [$^{18}F$]FDG, the slices were again imaged by BAS1500 for $^{99m}Tc$-glucarate uptake. Finally, these brain tissues were stained with TTC. Semi-quantitative visual analysis was done by grading 0 to 3 points according to the degree of uptakes($^{99m}Tc$-glucarate) and decreased uptakes([$^{18}F$]FDG and TTC). Ten rats survived with neurologic symptoms. TTC staining confirmed the development of infarction. The size of the infarction was relatively larger in the group without reperfusion. [$^{18}F$]FDG images were similar to TTC-stained images. However, we found regions with intermediate uptake which were not stained with TTC. We found regions with intermediate [$^{18}F$]FDG uptake where TTC staining was normal. $^{99m}Tc$-glucarate uptake was round only in TTC non-stained region. In the TTC stained regions, there were no uptake of $^{99m}Tc$-glucarate. We could not find clear relation between $^{99m}Tc$-glucarate uptake with [$^{18}F$]FDG uptake. This was partly because percent uptake of $^{99m}Tc$-glucarate was so small (less than 1 percent of injected dose) and because there were quite heterogeneity of patterns of [$^{18}F$]FDG uptake and TTC. With these findings, we could conclude that $^{99m}Tc$-glucarate were taken up only in part of ischemic tissues which were proven to be nonviable. The establishment of MCA-occluded rat model with or without reperfusion and triple imaging for $^{99m}Tc,\;^{18}F$ and TTC helped the characterization of $^{99m}Tc$-glucarate uptakes. Further work is needed to clarify the meaning or diversities or [$^{18}F$]FDG and TTC and their relation with $^{99m}Tc$-glucarate.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.42 no.sup1
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• pp.110-112
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• 2008

Endometrial carcinoma is one of the most common gynecologic malignancies and which is predominant in postmenopausal women. Clinically many patients are hospitalized in early stage due to clinical sign and symptom such as vaginal bleeding and in this case, patient's prognosis is known to be good. However, considerable number of patients with advanced and relapsed disease reveal poor prognosis. Therefore, exact staging work up is essential for proper treatment as is primary lesion detection. $^{18}F-FDG-PET$ has been widely used for the evaluation of gynecologic malignancies such as cervical carcinoma and ovarian cancer. In contrast, FDG PET application to endometrial carcinoma is limited until now and there is no sufficient data to validate the usefulness of FDG PET for this disease yet. However, several studies showed promising results that FDG PET is sensitive and specific in detection of recurrent or metastatic lesions. Therefore further active investigation in this field can facilitate the use of FDG PET for endometrial carcinoma.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.42 no.sup1
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• pp.116-120
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• 2008

Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death of men in western countries and the death related to this disease in Korea is also getting increased. Although anatomic imaging tools such as transrectal US or MRI have been playing a great role in detection of primary prostate lesion, the evaluation of regional lymph node or distant organ metastasis using these modalities is not successful. $^{18}F-FDG-PET$ scan is emerging diagnostic tool for various malignancies. Considering the usual characteristics of prostate cancer such as slow growing and osteoblastic metastasis, the application of FDG PET scan to this disease might be limited. However, in advanced prostate cancer refractory to chemotherapy, FDG PET scan show strong FDG uptake and SUV changes in serial PET scan can be a good indicator of treatment response. Although FDG PET can be useful only in limited cases of prostate cancer, its indication can be widened in future owing to rapid technical improvement and accumulated experiences in this field.