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Background and purpose of work: The purpose of this study was to investigate the viability of using 18 F fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission computed tomography (PET/CT) to detect breast cancer pleural metastases and how this information relates to patient survival and outcome. Methods: 537 patients with pathologically confirmed breast cancer who had received PET/CT scanning at various phases of the disease were included in a retrospective research. 115 patients exhibited a variety of pleural lesions, which were subsequently verified or excluded by cytological analysis, a follow-up PET/CT scan, or other traditional radiology. The prognosis and OS were then correlated with these findings.Findings: The average age of the 115 patients is 53±12. Nine patients (86.1%) had additional distant sites of metastases. Analyses of various types of pleural involvement revealed that 40% had effusion, 22% had nodular thickening, 33.3% had diffuse thickening, and 4.7% had a combination of these patterns. PET/CT had a 93% accuracy rate for detecting pleural metastases linked to breast cancer, with sensitivity and specificity of 92.5% and 94.1%, respectively. Pleural metastases were negatively correlated with overall survival and prognosis (p<0.001), and their association with additional distant metastases made the situation much worse (p<0.001). Conclusions: The combined presence of large and FDG avid pleural lesions can be a sensitive marker to suspect pleural metastases. While reporting a worrisome pleural lesion, PET/CT qualitative and quantitative assessment is helpful as it can influence and help map out the therapeutic approach to enhance the overall prognosis and survival.
Elkholy et al. (Sat,) studied this question.