Whole body PET for the evaluation of bony metastases in patients with breast cancer:: comparison with 99Tcm-MDP bone scintigraphy

The purpose of this study was to determine the potential role of positron emission tomography (PET) using 2-[F-18]-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (FDG) for the evaluation of bony metastasis compared with Tc-99(m)-methylene diphosphonate (Tc-99(m)-MDP) bone scintigraphy in patients with breast cancer. Fifty-one female patients with breast cancer who had PET together with a bone scan within 1 month between September 1994 and March 1997 were included in this study. The median age was 49 years (range 29-79 years). The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of the bone scan were 77.7%, 80.9% and 80.3%, respectively. On the other hand, for the detection of bone metastases PET had a sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of 77.7%, 97.6% and 94.1%, respectively. In the diagnosis of bony metastasis derived from breast cancer, FDG-PET was statistically superior to bone scintigraphy in its specificity. In conclusion, FDG-PET appears to be a powerful tool not only in the diagnosis of the primary lesion and soft tissue metastasis, but also in the diagnosis of bony metastasis among patients with breast cancer. ((C) 2001 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins).