PRESS RELEASE
EMBARGOED UNTIL NOON, JUNE 23, 2003
Technologist Section
Society of Nuclear Medicine
Contact: Kimberly A. Bennett
kbennett@kamber.com
Office: 202-955-1253
Cell: 202-276-6848
PET-CT More Accurate Than PET in Staging
Lung Cancer Patients
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – More than 125,000 Americans die from lung cancer each year,
making it the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. “Accurately staging the disease is
critical to determining the best treatment and the ultimate prognosis,” noted Tom Mahone, coauthor of
a study that determined PET-CT is quite effective in staging of non-small cell lung cancer.
There are many tools available to evaluate lung cancer patients, including PET scans, CT scans, and
clinical history. Mahone and his colleagues from the Department of Radiology, Division of Nuclear
Medicine and the Department of Surgery, both at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Medical
Center in Birmingham, Alabama, assessed the staging accuracy of PET alone (defined as
interpretation of a PET scan along with evaluation of a CT scan performed within one week of PET)
versus PET-CT (evaluation of concomitant PET and CT scans from the GE Discovery LS system).
The study evaluated 30 patients undergoing initial staging for non-small cell lung cancer – the most
common form of the disease. Patients were injected with the radiopharmaceutical 555 MBq F-18 FDG
and underwent a PET-CT scan. These images, as well as the results of the PET scans alone, were
compared to pathological specimens.
The results of the study, which were presented at the Society of Nuclear Medicine’s 50th Annual
Meeting, revealed that 6.6% of tumors were not classified severely enough based on PET images
alone and were correctly upgraded based on PET-CT readings to reflect their actual severity. Mahone
and his colleagues attributed PET-CT’s improved accuracy to its ability to identify lung cancer that
had spread to the chest wall and other vascular and bronchial structures. In addition, PET readings
alone overestimated the severity of some tumors, and combined PET-CT results correctly downgraded
13.3% of tumors. Finally, PET-CT proved more precise in classifying metastasized lung cancer –
upstaging cancer that had spread to bones and downstaging cancer that had spread to soft tissue.
Overall, the researchers concluded, “PET-CT has greater specificity in staging patients with non-small
cell lung cancer.”
The Society of Nuclear Medicine is holding its 50th Annual Meeting June 21-25 at the Ernest N.
Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, Louisiana. In addition to educational sessions and the
presentation of scientific papers, the meeting will focus on current issues in nuclear medicine,
including bioethics, terrorism using radioactive materials, and controversial topics in the future of
PET. More than 3,600 specialists in the field of nuclear medicine are expected to attend.
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