Keywords:
Nuclear medicine, Molecular imaging, Haematologic, PET-CT, Segmentation, Computer Applications-Detection, diagnosis, Cancer, Molecular, genomics and proteomics, Haematologic diseases
Authors:
G. Z. Papadakis1, G. MANIKIS1, F. Hannah-Shmouni2, A. H. Karantanas1, K. J. O’Brien2, W. A. Gahl2, J. I. Estrada-Veras2; 1Iraklion/GR, 2Bethesda, MD/US
DOI:
10.1594/ecr2018/C-3183
Methods and materials
Prospective evaluation of 15 ECD patients (mean age at first ECD manifestations: 53y.o.) with whole body 18F-FDGPET/CT scans.
11 patients were BRAF-positive,
4 were BRAF-negative,
while in 1 patient the mutation status was not tested.
Adrenal metabolic activity was assessed by quantifying 18F-FDG uptake,
using the MIM Vista workstation (version 6.5.9).
A VOI encompassing both adrenal glands was drawn,
and an automated SUV threshold-based approach was applied in order to include all 18F-FDG avid adrenal regions,
while excluding low level background activity.
The applied framework enables automatic generation of individual VOIs encircling all areas above the SUV threshold set by the user (SUV threshold was set at 2).
Afterwards,
the following parameters were automatically obtained: SUVmax,
SUVmean (average SUV),
total 18F-FDG avid adrenal volume (TV) and total glycolytic activity (TGA) of the adrenals determined as the product of SUVmean multiplied by TV (TGA= SUVmean x TV).
Finally,
statistical analysis was performed using R software (version 3.3.3).