Myths about inexpediency of carrying out peptide receptor radionuclide diagnostics in patients with neuroendocrine tumors

Abstract

he disease incidence of neuroendocrine tumors (NET) is increasing every year. Neuroendocrine tumors Grade 1 and 2 have a more favorable prognosis than Grade 3. When we are talking about NET with non-detected initial focus, the 10-year survival rate is 22 % [1]. Therefore, it is necessary to make every effort and use all technical abilities to localize the primary tumor, even in the presence of metastases, because resection of the primary tumor(s) can increase disease-free and overall survival rate. Also, the choice of chemotherapy drug or the appointment of biotherapy may depend on this. Finding tumor localization remains challenging and must involve a combination of radiological, nuclear medicine and endoscopic imaging techniques. There are many different myths about the purpose of nuclear medicine examinations and interpretation of the results in NET patients. And in this article we will try to debunk some of them, using examples from our experience in our center. We choose 111 patients with NET (histologically confimed). All patients underwent scintigraphy of neuroendocrine tumors with 99mTc-EDDA/HYNICTOC (99mTc-Tektrotyd) in the «whole body» mode and additional SPECT or SPECT/CT examination of the chest,abdomen and pelvis.