Early acquisition with PET-CT in therapeutic follow-up of radiofrequency treated patients for lung metastasis

Recent studies have shown the value of the (18)FDG-PET-CT examination in monitoring the effectiveness of the radiofrequency treatment (RF). We evaluated the benefits of an early PET-CT examination in patients who underwent RF treatment for pulmonary metastases. PET-CT examinations were performed before and immediately after acts of RF in six patients. Efficiency was considered complete with the absence of uptake focused on the PET-CT and performed after the gesture of RF and incomplete at the persistence of increased focused uptake. Efficiency was assessed on the PET-CT scans performed three months after the act of therapeutic and PET, CT, MRI and anatomopathological controls, up to one year. The PET-CT showed in 3 patients, a total absence of the radiotracer during early exam, with ``repositivation'' at 3 months for 2 of them, showing that they could get rid of the inflammatory reaction in early hours. He also showed that the positive early examinations remained the same, and the therapeutic treatment failure was confirmed with the anatomopathological tests. This preliminary study showed the benefits of early acquisition within four hours of treatment procedure that allows early diagnosis of incomplete ablations. It also tends to confirm the reliability of the examination at three months, which is still earlier than the morphological imaging techniques. (C) 2014 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.