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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · World J Nucl Med 2020; 19(04): 438-440
DOI: 10.4103/wjnm.WJNM_7_20
Case Report

The hot embolus of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose

Riffat Hussain
Department of Radiology, PET-CT, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center, Karachi, Pakistan
,
Tariq Mahmood
Department of Radiology, PET-CT, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center, Karachi, Pakistan
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Abstract

Scanning oncological patients with 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) for their disease staging, evaluation of treatment response, and monitoring/management has become a standard of care. The use of the radioactive fluorine in the FDG molecule helps establish cell/tissue lines high on glucose consumption and hence metabolically active. Abnormalities are detected on the scan as areas of increased uptake. However, these areas of increased (hot) uptakes do not necessarily translate into a pathological finding. A comprehensive knowledge of the uptakes of the tracer and the potential “pitfalls” that may be associated with them should be known and kept in mind during scan reading. One such pitfall is the “hot clot” or “pulmonary emboli,” and we report two such cases encountered at our setup and discuss their causes and how they should be identified and avoided.

Keywords

False-positive finding - hot emboli - hot clot - imaging pitfall

Financial support and sponsorship

Nil.




Publication History

Received: 14 January 2020

Accepted: 31 January 2020

Article published online:
19 April 2022

© 2020. Sociedade Brasileira de Neurocirurgia. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commecial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

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