The diagnostic value of PET/CT in recurrence and distant metastasis in breast cancer patients and impact on disease free survival

Abstract Aim of work To detect the diagnostic value of PET/CT in breast cancer patients. We compared the performance of PET/CT with that of conventional imaging in detection of recurrence and distant metastasis and evaluated the impact PET/CT results have on disease free survival. Materials and methods We retrospectively studied 50 patients with breast cancer with clinical suspicion of recurrent or metastatic lesion and who underwent PET/CT and conventional imaging procedures. The imaging results were retrospectively compared with histopathology and clinical follow-up as a reference standard. Results PET/CT detected distant metastases with a sensitivity of 97% and a specificity of 93%. In contrast, the sensitivity and specificity of combined conventional imaging procedures were 75% and 73%, respectively, disease-free survival was significantly shorter in the 34 M1-PET/CT patients than in the 14 M0-PET/CT patients (log-rank P =  0.002) also PET/CT detected recurrence in 1 patient with equivocal mammographic findings. Conclusion In breast cancer, PET/CT is superior to conventional imaging procedures for detection of recurrence, distant metastases and PET/CT can be used to improve prediction of the clinical outcome of breast cancer patients.