Normal variants and frequent pitfalls with 18FDG PET/CT study

Gisela del Rocío Estrada-Sánchez; Javier Altamirano-Ley; Francisco Javier Ochoa-Carrillo

2007, Number 6

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Cir Cir 2007; 75 (6)

Normal variants and frequent pitfalls with ¹⁸FDG PET/CT study

Estrada-Sánchez GR, Altamirano-Ley J, Ochoa-Carrillo FJ

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Language: Spanish
References: 22
Page: 491-497
PDF size: 201.45 Kb.

ABSTRACT

Background: Fluordeoxyglucose (¹⁸FDG) is the most common radiotracer used for PET/CT studies. It enters the cell because of the glucose transporter proteins (GLUTs): 1) erythrocytic membrane, skeletal muscle, lymphocytes, ovaries, breast; 2) pancreas, retina, erythrocytes; 3) adipocytes, ovaries, testis; 4) skeletal muscle, adipocytes, ovaries, myocardium; 5) breast, small intestine, testis, kidney, erythrocytes; 6) spleen, leucocytes, brain; 7) liver; 8) testis, brain; 9) liver, kidney; 10) liver, pancreas; 11) heart, muscle; 12) heart, prostate; 13) brain. We undertook this study to expand the knowledge about physiological uptake and physiological uptake of ¹⁸FDG.
Discussion: False positives were as follows: pneumoniae, tuberculosis, sarcoidosis, cryptococcosis, thrombosis, bronchitis, costochondritis, radiation pneumonitis, misregistration for respiratory movements, catheters, thyroid and adrenal adenomas, osteophytes, fractures, abscess, foreign body, surgical wounds, ostomies, prosthesis, degenerative joint diseases, osteomyelitis, amyloidosis, pancreatitis, myositis, gastritis, colitis, herpes zoster. ¹⁸FDG should be injected 4-6 h after insulin administration because it will be concentrated in the muscles. The brown fat raises its uptake 50% in late images.
Conclusions: It is vital to know the most frequent sites of physiological uptake in the ¹⁸FDG PET/CT studies to identify those regions that occasionally present hypermetabolism but that are not related to neoplastic tumors. This must be taken into consideration in the evaluation of PET/CT studies.

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