Abstract
Hybrid imaging with combined positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) plays an important role in the staging and management of a wide variety of solid tumours. However, its use in the evaluation of musculoskeletal malignancy has not yet entered routine clinical practice. Cross-sectional imaging with magnetic resonance imaging (MR) and computed tomography have well-established roles but there is increasing evidence for the selective use of PET/CT in the management of these patients. The aims of this article are to review the current evidence and clinical applications of PET/CT in primary musculoskeletal tumours and discuss potential future developments using novel PET tracers and integrated PET/MR.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Hilner BE, Siegel BA, Liu D et al (2008) Impact of positron emission tomography/computed tomography and positron emission tomography (PET) alone on expected management of patients with cancer: initial results from the National Oncologic PET Registry. J Clin Oncol 26:2155–2161
Blodgett TM, Meltzer CC, Townsend DW (2008) PET/CT: form and function. Radiology 242:360–385
Gambhir SS, Cerznin J, Schwimmer J et al (2001) A tabulated summary of the FDG PET literature. J Nucl Med 42(Suppl):1S–93S
Israel O, Mor M, Gaitini D et al (2002) Combined functional and structural evaluation of cancer patients with a hybrid camera-based PET/CT system using 18 F-FDG. J Nucl Med 43:1129–1136
Antoch G, Vogt FM, Freudenberg LS et al (2003) Whole-body dual modality PET/CT and whole-body MRI for tumor staging in oncology. JAMA 290:3199–3206
Antoch G, Saoudi N, Kuehl H et al (2004) Accuracy of whole-body dual-modality fluorine-18-2-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose positron emission tomography and computed tomography (FDG-PET/CT) for tumor staging in solid tumors: comparison with CT and PET. J Clin Oncol 22:4357–4368
von Schulthess GK, Steinert HC, Hany TF (2006) Integrated PET/CT: current applications and future directions. Radiology 238:405–422
Kim JW, Dang CV (2006) Cancer's molecular sweet tooth and the Warburg effect. Cancer Res 66:8927–8930
Feldman F, van Heertum R, Manos C (2003) 18FDG PET scanning of benign and malignant musculoskeletal lesions. Skeletal Radiol 32:201–208
Hany TF, Steinert HC, Goerres GW et al (2002) PET diagnostic accuracy: improvement with in-line PET-CT system: initial results. Radiology 225:575–581
Poeppel TD, Krause BJ, Heusner TA et al (2009) PET/CT for the staging and follow-up of patients with malignancies. Eur J Radiol 70:382–392
Jadvar H, Gamie S, Ramanna L et al (2004) PET in the musculoskeletal system. Semin Nucl Med 34:254–261
Aoki J, Endo K, Watanabe H et al (2003) FDG-PET for evaluating musculoskeletal tumors: a review. J Orthop Sci 8:435–441
Watanabe H, Shinozaki T, Yanagawa T et al (2000) Glucose metabolic analysis of musculoskeletal tumours using 18fluorine-FDG PET as an aid to pre-operative planning. J Bone Joint Surg Br 82:760–767
Adler LP, Blair HF, Makley JT et al (1991) Noninvasive grading of musculoskeletal tumors using PET. J Nucl Med 32:1508–1512
Ioannidis JP, Lau J (2003) 18F–FDG PET for the diagnosis and grading of soft tissue sarcoma: a meta-analysis. J Nucl Med 44:717–724
Israel-Mardirosian N, Adler LP (2003) Positron emission tomography of soft tissue sarcomas. Curr Opin Oncol 15:327–330
Aoki J, Watanabe H, Shinozaki T et al (2003) FDG-PET for preoperative differential diagnosis between benign and malignant soft tissue masses. Skeletal Radiol 32:133–138
Lucas JD, O’Doherty MJ, Cronin BF et al (1999) Prospective evaluation of soft tissue masses and sarcomas using fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography. Br J Surg 86:550–556
Schwarzbach MH, Dimitrakopoulou-Strauss A, Willeke F et al (2000) Clinical value of [18-F] fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography in soft tissue sarcomas. Ann Surg 231:380–386
Lodge MA, Lucas JD, Marsden PK et al (1999) A PET study of 18FDG uptake in soft tissue masses. Eur J Nucl Med 26:22–30
Chen YM, Huang G, Sun XG et al (2008) Optimizing delayed scan time for FDG PET: comparison of the early and late delayed scan. Nucl Med Commun 29:425–430
Hamada K, Tomita Y, Ueda T et al (2006) Evaluation of delayed 18F-FDG PET in differential diagnosis for malignant soft-tissue tumors. Ann Nucl Med 20:671–675
Ferner RE, Golding JF, Smith M et al (2008) [18F] 2-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose positron emission tomography (FDG PET) as a diagnostic tool for neurofibromatosis 1 (NF-1) associated malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumours (MPNSTs): a long-term clinical study. Ann Oncol 19:390–394
Bredella MA, Torriani M, Hornicek F et al (2007) Value of PET in the assessment of patients with neurofibromatosis type 1. Am J Roentgenol 189:928–935
Warbey VS, Ferner RE, Dunn JT, Calonje E, O'Doherty MJ (2009) [18F] FDG PET/CT in the diagnosis of malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumours in neurofibromatosis type-1. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 36:751–757
Schwarzbach MH, Dimitrakopoulou-Strauss A, Mechtersheimer G et al (2001) Assessment of soft tissue lesions suspicious for liposarcoma by F18-deoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET). Anticancer Res 21:3609–3614
Tateishi U, Yamaguchi U, Seki K et al (2007) Bone and soft-tissue sarcoma: preoperative staging with fluorine 18 fluorodeoxyglucose PET/CT and conventional imaging. Radiology 245:839–847
Schwarzbach MH, Hinz U, Dimitrakopoulou-Strauss A et al (2005) Prognostic significance of preoperative [18-F] flourodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) imaging in patients with resectable soft tissue sarcomas. Ann Surg 241:286–294
Dimitrakopoulou-Strauss A, Strauss LG, Schwarzbach MH et al (2001) Dynamic PET 18F-FDG studies in patients with primary and recurrent soft-tissue sarcomas: impact on diagnosis and correlation with grading. J Nucl Med 42:713–720
Eary JF, O’Sullivan F, Powitan Y et al (2002) Sarcoma tumor FDG uptake measured by PET and patient outcome: a retrospective analysis. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 29:1149–1154
Bredella MA, Caputo GR, Steinbach LS (2002) Value of FDG positron emission tomography in conjunction with MR imaging for evaluating therapy response in patients with musculoskeletal sarcomas. Am J Roentgenol 179:1145–1150
Evilevitch V, Weber WA, Tap WD et al (2008) Reduction of glucose metabolic activity is more accurate than change in size at predicting histopathologic response to neoadjuvant therapy in high-grade soft-tissue sarcomas. Clin Cancer Res 14:715–720
Choi H, Charnsangavej C, Faria SC et al (2007) Correlation of computed tomography and positron emission tomography in patients with metastatic gastrointestinal stromal tumor treated at a single institution with imatinib mesylate: proposal of new computed tomography response criteria. J Clin Oncol 25:1753–1759
Goerres GW, Stupp R, Barghouth G et al (2005) The value of PET, CT and in-line PET/CT in patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumours: long-term outcome of treatment with imatinib mesylate. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 32:153–162
Gayed I, Vu T, Iyer R et al (2004) The role of 18F-FDG PET in staging and early prediction of response to therapy of recurrent gastrointestinal stromal tumors. J Nucl Med 45:17–21
Dehdashti F, Siegel BA, Griffeth LK et al (1996) Benign versus malignant intraosseous lesions: discrimination by means of PET with 2-[F-18] flouro-2-deoxy-D-glucose. Radiology 200:243–247
Aoki J, Watanabe H, Shinozaki T et al (2001) FDG PET of primary benign and malignant bone tumors: standardized uptake value in 52 lesions. Radiology 219:774–777
Tian R, Su M, Tian Y et al (2009) Dual-time point PET/CT with F-18 FDG for the differentiation of malignant and benign bone lesions. Skeletal Radiol 38:451–458
Zhuang H, Pourdehnad M, Lambright ES et al (2001) Dual time point 18F-FDG PET imaging for differentiating malignant from inflammatory processes. J Nucl Med 42:1412–1417
Strobel K, Exner UE, Stumpe KD et al (2008) The additional value of CT images interpretation in the differential diagnosis of benign vs. malignant primary bone lesions with 18F-FDG-PET/CT. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 35:2000–2008
Brenner W, Bohuslavizki KH, Eary JF (2003) PET imaging of osteosarcoma. J Nucl Med 44:930–942
Franzius C, Sciuk J, Daldrup-Link HE, Jurgen H, Schober O (2000) FDG PET for detection of osseous metastases from malignant primary bone tumours: comparison with bone scintigraphy. Eur J Nucl Med 27:1305–1311
Daldrup-Link HE, Franzius C, Link TM et al (2001) Whole-body MR imaging for detection of bone metastases in children and young adults: comparison with skeletal scintigraphy and FDG PET. Am J Roentgenol 177:229–236
Even-Sapir E, Metser U, Flusser G et al (2004) Assessment of malignant skeletal disease: initial experience with 18F-fluoride PET/CT and comparison between 18F-fluoride PET and 18F-fluoride PET/CT. J Nucl Med 45:272–278
Franzius C, Daldrup-Link HE, Sciuk J et al (2001) FDG-PET for detection of pulmonary metastases from malignant primary bone tumors: comparison with spiral CT. Ann Oncol 12:479–486
Werner MK, Parker JA, Kolodny GM, English JR, Palmer MR (2009) Respiratory gating enhances imaging of pulmonary nodules and measurement of tracer uptake in FDG PET/CT. Am J Roentgenol 193:1640–1645
Cheon GJ, Kim MS, Lee JA et al (2009) Prediction model of chemotherapy response in osteosarcoma by 18F-FDG PET and MRI. J Nucl Med 50:1435–1440
Franzius C, Sciuk J, Brinkschmidt C et al (2000) Evaluation of chemotherapy response in primary bone tumors with F-18 FDG PET compared with histologically assessed tumor necrosis. Clin Nucl Med 25:874–881
Ye Z, Zhu J, Tian M et al (2008) Response of osteogenic sarcoma to neoadjuvant therapy: evaluated by 18F-FDG-PET. Ann Nucl Med 22:475–480
Costelloe CM, Macapinlac HA, Madewell JE et al (2009) 18F-FDG PET/CT as an indicator of progression-free and overall survival in osteosarcoma. J Nucl Med 50:340–347
Franzius C, Daldrup-Link HE, Wagner-Bohn A et al (2002) FDG-PET for detection of recurrences from malignant primary bone tumors: comparison with conventional imaging. Ann Oncol 13:157–160
Ludwig JA (2008) Ewing sarcoma: historical perspectives, current state-of-the-art, and opportunities for targeted therapy in the future. Curr Opin Oncol 20:412–418
Kleis M, Daldrup-link H, Matthay K et al (2009) Diagnostic value of PET-CT for the staging and restaging of pediatric tumors. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 36:23–36
Völker T, Denecke T, Steffen I et al (2007) Positron emission tomography for staging of pediatric sarcoma patients: results of a prospective multicenter trial. J Clin Oncol 25:5435–5441
Hawkins DS, Rajendran JG, Conrad EU 3rd, Bruckner JD, Eary JF (2002) Evaluation of chemotherapy response in pediatric bone sarcomas by [F-18]-fluorodeoxy-D-glucose positron emission tomography. Cancer 94:3277–3284
Arush MW, Israel O, Postovsky S et al (2007) Positron emission tomography/computed tomography with 18-fluoro-deoxyglucose in the detection of local recurrence and distant metastases of pediatric sarcoma. Pediatr Blood Cancer 49:901–905
Furth C, Amthauer H, Denecke T, Ruf J, Henze G, Gutberlet M (2006) Impact of whole body MRI and FDG-PET on staging and assessment of therapy response in a patient with Ewing sarcoma. Paediatr Blood Cancer 47:607–611
Hawkins DS, Schuetze SM, Butrynski JE et al (2005) [18F] Fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography predicts outcome for Ewing sarcoma family of tumors. J Clin Oncol 23:8828–8834
Gerth HU, Juergens KU, Dirksen U, Gerss J, Schober O, Franzius C (2007) Significant benefit of multimodal imaging: PET/CT compared with PET alone in staging and follow-up of patients with Ewing tumors. J Nucl Med 48:1932–1939
Feldman F, van Heertum R, Saxena C, Parisien M (2005) 18FDG-PET applications for cartilage neoplasms. Skeletal Radiol 34:367–374
Brenner W, Conrad EU, Eary JF (2004) FDG PET imaging for grading and prediction of outcome in chondrosarcoma patients. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 31:189–195
Lee FY, Yu J, Chang SS, Fawwaz R, Parisien MV (2004) Diagnostic value and limitations of fluorine -18 fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography for cartilaginous tumors of bone. J Bone Joint Surg Am 86A(12):2677–2685
Aoki J, Watanabe H, Shinozaki T, Tokunaga M, Inoue T, Endo K (1999) FDG-PET in differential diagnosis and grading of chondrosarcomas. J Comput Assist Tomogr 23:603–608
Kitsoulis P, Vlychou M, Papoudou-Bai A et al (2006) Primary lymphomas of bone. Anticancer Res 26(1A):325–337
Park YH, Kim S, Choi SJ et al (2005) Clinical impact of whole-body FDG-PET for evaluation of response and therapeutic decision-making of primary lymphoma of bone. Ann Oncol 16:1401–1402
Kwee TC, Kwee RM, Nievelstein RA (2008) Imaging in staging of malignant lymphoma: a systematic review. Blood 111:504–516
Hutchings M, Barrington SF (2009) PET/CT for therapy response assessment in lymphoma. J Nucl Med 50(Suppl 1):21S–30S
Kasamon YL, Wahl RL (2008) FDG PET and risk-adapted therapy in Hodgkin’s and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Curr Opin Oncol 20:206–219
International Myeloma Working Group (2003) Criteria for the classification of monoclonal gammopathies, multiple myeloma and related disorders: a report of the International Myeloma Working Group. Br J Haematol 121(5):749–757
Dimopoulos M, Terpos E, Comenzo RL et al (2009) International Myeloma Working Group consensus statement and guidelines regarding the current role of imaging techniques in the diagnosis and monitoring of multiple myeloma. Leukemia 23:1545–1556
Breyer RJ 3rd, Mulligan ME, Smith SE, Line BR, Badros AZ (2006) Comparison of imaging with FDG PET/CT with other imaging modalities in myeloma. Skeletal Radiol 35:632–640
Jadvar H, Conti PS (2002) Diagnostic utility of FDG PET in multiple myeloma. Skeletal Radiol 31:690–694
Nanni C, Zamagni E, Farsad M et al (2006) Role of 18F-FDG PET/CT in the assessment of bone involvement in newly diagnosed multiple myeloma: preliminary results. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 33:525–531
Bredella MA, Steinbach L, Caputo G, Segall G, Hawkins R (2005) Value of FDG-PET in the assessment of patients with multiple myeloma. Am J Roentgenol 184:1199–1204
Shortt CP, Gleeson TG, Breen KA et al (2009) Whole-body MRI versus PET in assessment of multiple myeloma disease activity. Am J Roentgenol 192:980–986
Baur-Melnyk A, Buhmann S, Becker C et al (2008) Whole-body MRI versus whole-body MDCT for staging of multiple myeloma. Am J Roentgenol 190:1097–1104
Bartel TB, Haessler J, Brown TL et al (2009) F18-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography in the context of other imaging techniques and prognostic factors in multiple myeloma. Blood 114(10):2068–2076
Kim PJ, Hicks RJ, Wirth A et al (2009) Impact of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography before and after definitive radiation therapy in patients with apparently solitary plasmacytoma. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 74(3):740–746
Buck AK, Herrmann K, Büschenfelde CM et al (2008) Imaging bone and soft tissue tumors with the proliferation marker [18F] fluorodeoxythymidine. Clin Cancer Res 14:2970–2977
Watanabe H, Inoue T, Shinozaki T et al (2000) PET imaging of musculoskeletal tumors with fluorine-18 alpha-methyltyrosine: comparison with fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose PET. Eur J Nucl Med 27:1509–1517
Toner GC, Hicks RJ (2008) PET for sarcomas other than gastrointestinal stromal tumors. Oncologist 13(Suppl 2):22–26
Yanagawa T, Watanabe H, Inoue T et al (2003) Carbon-11 choline positron emission tomography in musculoskeletal tumors: comparison with fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography. J Comput Assist Tomogr 27:175–182
Inoue T, Kim EE, Wong FC et al (1996) Comparison of F18 FDG and C11 methionine PET in detection of malignant tumors. J Nucl Med 37:1472–1476
Nanni C, Zamagni E, Cavo M et al (2007) 11C-choline vs. 18F-FDG PET/CT in assessing bone involvement in patients with multiple myeloma. World J Surg Oncol 5:68
Ghigi G, Micera R, Maffione AM et al (2009) 11C-methionine vs. 18F-FDG PET in soft tissue sarcoma patients treated with neo-adjuvant therapy; preliminary results. In Vivo 23(1):105–110
Von Schulthess GK, Schlemmer HP (2009) A look ahead: PET/MR versus PET/CT. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 36(Suppl1):S3–S9
Antoch G, Bockisch A (2009) Combined PET/MRI: a new dimension in whole-body oncology imaging. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 36(Suppl1):S113–120
Schlemmer HP, Pichler BJ, Krieg R, Heiss WD (2009) An integrated MR/PET system: prospective applications. Abdom Imaging 34:668–674
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lakkaraju, A., Patel, C.N., Bradley, K.M. et al. PET/CT in primary musculoskeletal tumours: a step forward. Eur Radiol 20, 2959–2972 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00330-010-1862-z
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00330-010-1862-z