Role of Fused PET/CT in the Follow-up Assessment of the Post-Operative and Post-Therapeutic Cases of Renal Malignancy

Abstract
Background: Post-operative and post-therapeutic proper restaging of renal cancer can modify the therapeutic plans. PET-CT as combined anatomical and functional imaging technique and whole body survey is a useful technique for these patients.
Aim of Study: To determine the role of fused Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography (PET/CT) in the follow-up assessment of the patients with treated renal malignancy.
Subjects and Methods: All data were collected and ana-lyzed in a retrospective pattern; enrolling 33 patients who were cases of treated renal malignancies (9 females and 24 males) (their age range=37-73 years). The patients had been referred to a private imaging center for evaluation of disease recurrence by fused PET/CT.
Results: By PET/CT a recurrent malignancy was catego-rized as operative bed recurrence/residual, nodal and distal metastasis.
With a reference to the gold standard (the histopathology examination with a correlation to the clinical and the radio-logical follow-up assessments if available), the PET/CT (for the tumor recurrence/residual) had sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and an overall accuracy (94.7%, 100%, 100%, 93.3% & 97%) respec-tively, while the CT (for the tumor recurrence/residual) had had sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and an overall accuracy (68.4%, 92.8%, 92.8%, 68.4%, 78.8%) respectively.
Conclusion: PET/CT offered a useful diagnostic tool for detection of the operative bed recurrence and nodal and distant metastases and therapeutic assessment follow-up in patients with renal cancer.