PET/MRI may improve diagnosis of Cushing disease

PET/MRI could become the diagnostic method of choice over MRI alone for identifying small pituitary tumors associated with Cushing disease, according to a study published March 21 in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine. In patients diagnosed with the disease yet who had inconclusive MRI results, PET/MRI was positive in 100% of cases, noted lead author Ilanah Pruis, a doctoral student at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands. “This multimodal imaging technique provides a welcome improvement for diagnosis, planning of surgery, and clinical outcome in patients with Cushing disease,” the authors wrote. Cushing disease is characterized by small tumors in pituitary glands, which causes them to secrete excess cortisol, the authors explained. While it is a rare disease, over time it can cause severely disabling conditions, such as high blood pressure or type II diabetes. Currently, guidelines recommend the use of MRI and inferior petrosal sinus sampling (IPSS) to diagnose these tumors. IPSS is an invasive procedure in which cortisol hormone levels are sampled from the veins that drain the pituitary gland. In up to 40% of patients, however, MRI is inconclusive, as the lesions are smaller than 10 millimeters in diameter. Even advanced MRI techniques, such as dynamic perfusion imaging, can leave small lesions undetected in up to one third of patients, the authors noted. In preclinical work, PET imaging using a radiotracer named F-18 FET has been shown to bi...
Source: AuntMinnie.com Headlines - Category: Radiology Authors: Tags: Molecular Imaging Source Type: news