THE ROLE OF PET CT IN COMPARISON TO TRIPHASIC CT IN EARLY FOLLOW UP OF HEPATOCELLULAR CARCINOMA AFTER TRANSARTERIAL CHEMOEMOBLIZATION

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Radiodiagnosis, Faculty of Medicine Ain Shams University.

2 El-Sheikh Zayed AL-Nahyan Hospital –Manshet Nasr - Ministry of health.

Abstract

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the major causes of mortality among patients with cirrhosis. It represents about 11.85% of the malignancies of all GIT organs and 1.78% of the total malignancies among Egyptians.
Aim of the work: This study aimed to compare between the role PET/CT and triphasic CT in evaluation of HCC after trans-arterial chemoembolization (TACE). Patients and Methods: From November 2016 to November 2018, thirty patients (24 males and 6 females), their age ranged from 44 to 75 years with mean age of 60.6 years were referred to the radiology
unit after trans-arterial chemoembolization (TACE) of hepatocellular carcinoma.18F-FDG PET/CT and triphasic CT examinations were conducted in a private radiology center in Cairo for all patients using combined PET-CT machine (Philips intgenuity TF PET/CT 128 slices).The reference standard to determine the accuracy of the results included laboratory serial AFP level monitoring, follow up by different imaging modalities and histopathological results of the resected liver in case of transplantation. Results: PET/CT showed sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of 96.3%, 66.7% and 93.3% respectively in comparison to 74%, 100.0% and 76 % for triphasic CT. Conclusion: 18F-FDG PET/CT showed higher diagnostic
accuracy over triphasic CT in evaluation of intervention bed following TACE regardless the degree of tumor vascularity or lipiodol deposition that could limit detecting residual disease.

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