Molecular Imaging Technology Used In Gastric Cancer

Main Category: Cancer / Oncology
Also Included In: GastroIntestinal / Gastroenterology;  MRI / PET / Ultrasound
Article Date: 25 Sep 2008 - 5:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   opinions  

Modern cancer care is critically dependent on imaging technologies, which are used to detect early tumors and guide their therapy or surgery. Molecular imaging technologies provide information about the functional or metabolic characteristics of malignancies, tumor stage and therapeutical response, and tumor recurrence; whereas conventional imaging technologies predominantly assess the tumor's anatomical or morphologic features including its size, density, shape, etc.

The research team led by Dr. Sun used PET/CT, which is based on information about the functional or metabolic characteristics of malignancies, to study the early recurrence in gastric cancer patients with suspected recurrence and in asymptomatic patients with gastric cancer. This was published on Augest 7, 2008 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology.

PET/CT was positive in 14 patients and negative in 9 patients. When correlated with final diagnosis, which was confirmed by histopathologic evidence of tumor recurrence in 8 of the 23 patients and by clinical follow-up in 15. Overall, the accuracy of PET/CT was 82.6%, negative predictive value was 77.7%, and positive predictive value was 85.7%. Especially, PET/CT revealed true-positive findings in 47.8% patients who had negative or no definite findings by computed tomography. PET/CT demonstrated extra-abdomen metastasis in 7 patients and additional esophageal carcinoma in one patient. Clinical decisions of treatment were changed in 30.4% patients after introducing PET/CT into their conventional post-operative follow-up program.

These results demonstrate a new view of molecular imaging technology in gastric cancer, and thus may provide new application for further improving of the long term survival of patients who are suffering from gastric cancer.

###

Reference: Sun L, Su XH, Guan YS, Pan WM, Chen GB, Luo ZM, Wei JH, Wu H. Clinical role of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computer tomography in post-operative follow up of gastric cancer: Initial results. World J Gastroenterol 2008;14(29): 4627-4632 http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/14/4627.asp

Correspondence to: Hua Wu, Minnan PET Center and department of nuclear medicine, the First Hospital of Xiamen, Fujian Medical University, Xiamen 316003, Fujian Province, China.

About World Journal of Gastroenterology

World Journal of Gastroenterology (WJG), a leading international journal in gastroenterology and hepatology, has established a reputation for publishing first class research on esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, liver cancer, viral hepatitis, colorectal cancer, and H pylori infection. It provides a forum for both clinicians and scientists. WJG has been indexed and abstracted in Current Contents/Clinical Medicine, Science Citation Index Expanded (also known as SciSearch) and Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition, Index Medicus, MEDLINE and PubMed, Chemical Abstracts, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, Abstracts Journals, Nature Clinical Practice Gastroenterology and Hepatology, CAB Abstracts and Global Health. ISI JCR 2003-2000 IF: 3.318, 2.532, 1.445 and 0.993. WJG is a weekly journal published by WJG Press. The publication dates are the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th of every month. The WJG is supported by The National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 30224801 and No. 30424812, and was founded with the title China National Journal of New Gastroenterology on October 1, 1995, and renamed WJG on January 25, 1998.

About The WJG Press

The WJG Press mainly publishes World Journal of Gastroenterology.

Source: Lai-Fu Li
World Journal of Gastroenterology

• Additional
• References
• Citations