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The article presents the study which clarified the usefulness of emission tomography using F-flourodeoxyglucose (FDG) in predicting histologic type and tumor invasiveness of thymoma. The result indicates that FDG as well as the carbon 11-labeled acetate (AC) are useful in predicting the histologic types of thymoma despite the fact that they do not predict the invasiveness of thymomas assessed by tumor. FDG also differed significantly between stages I/II tumors and stage III/IV tumors.

Abstract. Fluorine-18 labelled alpha-methyltyrosine (FMT) was developed for positron emission tomography (PET) imaging, and its potential for clinical application in patients with brain tumours has been demonstrated. This is the first trial to compare FMT with [sup 18]F-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (FDG) for the evaluation of musculoskeletal tumours. Seventy-five patients were examined with both FMT- and FDG-PET within a 2-week period. Imaging findings were visually inspected in conjunction with computed tomography and/or magnetic resonance imaging, and standardized uptake values (SUVs) for both FMT and FDG in lesions were also generated and compared with histological findings. A significant correlation between FMT and FDG SUVs was found for all lesions (r = 0.769, P<0.0001), and mean values for malignant tumours were significantly higher than those for benign lesions in both FMT- and FDG-PET. The diagnostic sensitivities and specificities for malignancy were 72.7% and 84.9%, respectively, using FMT with a cut-off SUV of 1.2, and 72.7% and 66.0%, respectively, using FDG with a cut-off SUV of 1.9. The resultant accuracy with FMT was 81.3%, higher than that for FDG (68.0%), and the difference with respect to specificity was significant (chi[sup 2] cal = 5.0625, P<0.05). On the... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]