Esophageal dysmotility in scleroderma patients with different disease forms and ANA patterns: a scintigraphic study in 100 cases

Objective: To define the prevalence and severity of esophageal involvement in systemic sclerosis (SSc) and its relationship with the different clinical forms and ANA specificities of the disease. Methods: A hundred consecutive patients with SSc, 48 with cutaneous limited, 26 with intermediate and 26 with diffuse form of disease, 49 with anti-centromere and 37 with anti-Scl70 ANA pattern, were submitted to scintigraphy using a semisolid orally ingested bolus to detect esophageal hypomotility. Results: An impairment of esophageal function has been observed in 68% of SSc patients. Esophageal dysmotility was significantly more frequent and severe in patients with cutaneous diffuse and intermediate forms of SSc and with anti- Scl70 ANA pattern. Conclusions: Esophageal involvement is very common in SSc. The scintigraphy confirms to be a useful and non invasive diagnostic method; moreover it permits to quantify the severity of the esophageal dysmotility by analyzing both global and segmental function

Positron emission tomography for the evaluation of soft-tissue sarcomas and bone sarcomas.

FDG PET/CT imaging in primary osseous and soft tissue sarcomas: a retrospective review of 212 cases

Choline PET/CT for prostate cancer: Main clinical applications.

Several studies investigated the potential roles of imaging modalities in prostate cancer patients for the evaluation of intra-prostatic disease, stage and restage. However no precise guidelines exist about the use of imaging modalities, in particular about the role of PET/CT hybrid imaging. Considering the results of the literature and our experience, we tried to summarize the main applications of choline positron emission tomography (PET) in prostate cancer patients. The use of choline PET/CT for initial diagnosis and staging is not recommended as a first-line method. Instead the main and important application of choline PET/CT is represented by the restaging of the disease in case of biochemical relapse for the detection of lymph node and distant recurrence. In particular choline PET/CT could play a crucial role as first diagnostic procedure in prostate cancer patients who show a fast growing Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) kinetics

Present and future of PET and PET/CT in gynaecologic malignancies.

OBJECTIVES: To review the published data in literature on patients affected by gynaecological malignancies to establish the role of (18)F-FDG positron emission tomography (PET) and PET/CT in comparison to conventional imaging (CI). MATERIALS AND METHODS: All papers specifically addressed to the role of (18)F-FDG PET and PET/CT in gynaecological malignancies published on PubMed/Medline, in abstracts from the principal international congresses, in the guidelines from national Societies that had appeared in literature until November 2009 were considered for the purpose of the present study. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The use of (18)F-FDG PET, and even more of (18)F-FDG PET/CT, is increasing in the follow up of patients with gynaecologic malignancies and suspected recurrent disease: there is evidence in the literature that (18)F-FDG PET/CT has a higher sensitivity than CI in depicting occult metastatic spread. An interesting issue is represented by patients with ovarian cancer with an increase of the specific biomarker, CA-125, and negative/inconclusive findings at CI. The use of (18)F-FDG PET in differential diagnosis and staging is more controversial, but there is some evidence that a baseline PET examination performed before commencing therapy, for staging purpose, is also useful to evaluate the response to chemoradiation treatment. In several papers it has been suggested a relevant role of (18)F-FDG PET/CT in evaluating the entity of response to treatment and therefore to plan the subsequent therapeutic strateg

Modern PET imaging for paragangliomas: Relation to genetic mutations

International audienceParagangliomas (PGL) are neural crest-derived tumours that are found along the autonomic neural network throughout the body and can be multiple and/or metastatic. Nuclear medicine imaging in combination with conventional imaging is required to fully delineate the extent of the disease. The performance of molecular imaging modalities is widely dependent on tumour biology

Noninvasive and invasive staging of ovarian cancer: review of the literature.

The use of F-18 FDG PET/CT in the characterization of doubtful adnexal findings and in the staging of ovarian cancer is being extensively evaluated. The purpose of our article is to review the literature and to add our experience to the published works. We concluded that F-18 FDG PET/CT could represent an important method in addition to other imaging modalities (transvaginal ultrasound-, and contrast-enhanced computed tomography) in the characterization of adnexal masses and in the staging of ovarian cancer patients, particularly in assessing the presence of extra-abdominal metastatic spread

Prostate-specific antigen kinetics and choline PET/CT in patients with biochemical relapse after primary treatment for prostate cancer.

Over the past few years, several studies have proved the potential role of diagnostic procedures in patients with treated prostate cancer who develop biochemical relapse. Notably, no precise indications exist regarding the use of emerging modalities such as positron emission tomography/computerized tomography (PET/CT) scanning with radiolabeled choline. However, the literature suggests that the main and most important application of choline PET/CT at present is in disease restaging in cases of biochemical relapse for the detection of local, lymph node-related or distant recurrence. In this setting, it is well known that prostate-specific antigen (PSA) values play a significant role in the follow-up of these patients. This short review aims at summarizing the results of the most relevant published studies with particular interest directed towards a better understanding of the relationship between PSA kinetics and choline PET/CT detection rate and the potential use of PSA kinetics for an optimal selection of patients who may benefit most from this diagnostic procedure particularly at an early stage of biochemical recurrence