The Diagnostic Accuracy of ¹⁸F-FGD-PET/CT for Cancer of the Gallbladder: A Retrospective Study

Abstract

Background Gallbladder cancer has a poor prognosis and imaging can have variable diagnostic accuracy. We assessed the ability of preoperative ¹⁸F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography computed tomography (¹⁸F-FDG-PET/CT) imaging to predict a postoperative histological diagnosis of gallbladder cancer.

Method A retrospective analysis was undertaken in a cohort of patients, who had suspected gallbladder cancer on cross-sectional imaging and that underwent preoperative FDG-PET/CT scan. The discriminatory power of FDG-PET/CT was determined in receiver operator characteristic (ROC) analysis and diagnostic accuracy parameters were estimated at different thresholds of maximum standard unit value (SUV_max)_.

Results Twenty-two patients were included in the study; 7 had malignant and 15 benign diagnoses. There was no statistically significant difference between the measured SUV_max between the two groups (p = 0.71). With an area under the curve of 0.486, the ROC curve did not indicate any discriminatory power of FDG-PET/CT at any potential threshold of SUV_max.

Conclusion This study indicates that the diagnosis of primary gallbladder cancer cannot be accurately confirmed with FDG PET/CT scanning.

Keywords

gallbladder - FDG - PET - CT - cancer - thickening - cholecystitis - diagnostic accuracy

• References

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