Presenter Dr. Matthias Fabritius of Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany, and colleagues examined data from 122 patients with differentiated NETs (grade 1/2) and at least one suspicious SSR-PET/CT imaging finding with a hepatic histopathologic correlate. In all, 147 SSR-PET/CTs were evaluated independently by two readers.
SSR-positive metastatic hepatic involvement on PET/CT was reported in 98.6% (n = 145) cases, while histopathology showed hepatic involvement of NETs in 92.5% (n = 136) of cases. In 7.5% (n = 11) of cases, histopathology was negative, despite suspected liver metastases in SSR-PET/CT scans. In 7 of 11 cases in which a rebiopsy was available, SSR-PET/CT confirmed findings of liver metastases in 5 cases; 2 of the rebiopsies confirmed the negative histopathologic results.
The positive predictive value (PPV) of SSR-PET/CT for the detection of liver metastases was excellent at 92.4%, Fabritius noted. In comparison with histopathology and rebiopsy, SSR-PET/CT achieved an even higher PPV of 95.9%, even though in 4/11 cases a rebiopsy result was not available.
"SSR-PET/CT represents an important diagnostic tool in the detection of hepatic involvement in NET patients and should be part of NET tumor staging and restaging," Fabritius wrote.
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