Diagnostic role of 18f-fluorodeoxyglucose positron-emission tomography/computed tomography in restaging renal cell carcinoma.

Abstract To review the diagnostic contributions of 18 FDG--PET/CT to the restating of Renal Cell Carcinoma (RCC) retrospectively. The current study included 132 patients, who were operated on between July 2007 and April 2013, for renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and received 18 FDG--PET/CT scans for restaging purposes. Ninety (68.2%) of the patients were male and 42 (31.8%) were female, with a mean age of 60.7 years and standard deviation ± 11.9 (range min: 28, max: 86). The patients were required to fast for six hours prior to scanning, and whole--body PET scanning from the skull base to the upper thighs was performed approximately 1 h after the intravenous injection of 555 MBq of F--18 FDG. Whole body CT scanning was performed in the cranio--caudal direction. FDG--PET images were reconstructed using CT data for attenuation correction. Suspicious recurrent or metastatic lesions were confirmed by histopathology or clinical follow--up. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and accuracy of 18 FDG--PET/CT were 93.8%, 88.2%, 92.6%, 88.2%, and 91.6%, respectively. 18 FDG--PET/CT can detect local and distant metastases with high precision in the restaging of renal cell carcinoma. It can play an important role in the postoperative decision--making for treatment choices, in following treatment response, and can affect decision--making.