[A case of hepatocellular carcinoma with lumbar bone metastasis with high uptake of 18F-fluorodeoxygalactose in PET].

18F-fluorodeoxygalactose (18FDGal) is a tracer for the evaluation of galactose metabolism in the tissue. PET with 18FDGal was performed in a hepatoma (HCC) patient with lumbar bone metastasis. The image at 45 min after i.v. injection of 18FDGal demonstrated very high uptake by the bone metastasis with tumor-to-surrounding normal tissue ratio of 36. The tumor uptake expressed by differential absorption ratio was much higher than that in the cirrhotic liver and kidney. The result indicated that the HCC maintained high activity of galactose metabolism and rises the potential of this tracer for detecting extrahepatic metastases of HCC using PET.