F-18 fluoro-2-deoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG PET) is widely used for staging and restaging patients with various malignancies. A number of interpretive pitfalls have been described, including inflammation, infection, and variations in physiological tracer uptake pattern. We describe a false-positive scan in a patient with adenocarcinoma of the duodenum, who underwent a pyloric sparing Whipple procedure. In interpreting a study in this setting, fat necrosis should appear in the differential diagnosis because surgery in and around the pancreas is thought to potentially cause lipase release, leading to fat necrosis.
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Reddy et al. (2006) studied this question.
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