Value of PET-CT imaging in diagnosing primary breast cancer and axillary lymph node metastases

Objective To investigate the clinical significance of PET-CT to diagnose breast cancer and the axiUary lymph nodes metastasis. Methods 40 patients with breast cancer performed PET-CT were enrolled in the research. Qualitation the primary tumor and accuracy of PET-CT were evaluated on pathological results and compared with axillary lymph nodes dissection. To analyzed the concordance of the size of primary tumor on pathological result with B-mode ultrasonic and PET-CT and the correlation with the SUV. Results The accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of PET-CT in identifying breast cancer were 95%, 94%, 100%. The accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of PET-CT based on the situation of the axillary lymph node dissection were 88.2% 89.2% 83.3%. A significant association was found between tumor weiweihong and PET-CT, furthermore it had not association with SUV. Conclusion The diagnosis of PET-CT in identifying breast cancer and the axillary lymph node metastasis basically conforms to pathology. It possesses high sensitivity and specificity especially in identifying the size of the primary lesion. It offers a beneficial method to determine the axillary lymph node dissection and reasonable therapeutic regimen. Key words: Breast neoplasms;  Tomography, emission-computed;  Neoplasm metastasis