Yeungnam Univ J Med.  2006 Dec;23(2):205-212. 10.12701/yujm.2006.23.2.205.

The Usefulness of Integrated PET/CT to Distinguish between Benignancy and Malignancy in Solitary Pulmonary Nodule

Affiliations
  • 1Department of Internal Medicine, College of Medicine, Yeungnam University, Daegu, Korea. jhchn@med.yu.ac.kr
  • 2Department of Nuclear Medicine, College of Medicine, Yeungnam University, Daegu, Korea.

Abstract

BACKGROUND
Malignant pulmonary nodules account for about 30 to 40 percent of solitary pulmonary nodules (SPN). Therefore, tissue characterization of SPNs is very important. Recently, PET/CT has been widely used for tissue characterization, and has become of importance. The purpose of this study was to compare and to assess multiple factors in PET/CT comparing benign and malignant nodules. MATERIALS AND METHOD: Nineteen patients with SPN underwent PET/CT and biopsy. The difference of standardized uptake value 1 (SUV1), standardized uptake value 2 (SUV2) and retention index in PET/CT between malignancy and benignancy were compared by Levene's test. RESULT: There were twelve malignant and seven benign nodules. SUV1 and SUV2 were significantly different between malignant nodule and benign nodule (p=0.006 and 0.022), but retention index was not significantly different between malignant nodule and benign nodule (p=0.526). By receiver-operating-characteristic (ROC) analysis, the sensitivity was 66.7% and the specificity was 71.4% at a cut off value of 5.40 in SUV1. The sensitivity was 75% and the specificity was 71.4% at cut off value of 7.45 in SUV2.
CONCLUSION
There was a statistically significant difference in SUV1 and SUV2 between benign and malignant nodules. However, the cut off value of SUV1 and SUV2 by receiver-operating-characteristic (ROC) analysis was 5.40 and 7.45 which is different from previous studies. Therefore, studies on a larger sample of patients are required for confirmation.

Keyword

PET/CT; Solitary pulmonary nodule; Standardized uptake value

MeSH Terms

Biopsy
Humans
Positron-Emission Tomography and Computed Tomography*
Solitary Pulmonary Nodule*
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