Is fludeoxyglucose-fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography/computed tomography ((18)F-FDG-PET/CT) really useless in staging pulmonary carcinoid tumors and in discriminating histological subtypes? Controversial points and future perspectives

Current Applications for Nuclear Medicine Imaging in Pulmonary Disease

Purpose of Review

The main goal of the article is to familiarize the reader with commonly and uncommonly used nuclear medicine procedures that can significantly contribute to improved patient care. The article presents examples of specific modality utilization in the chest including assessment of lung ventilation and perfusion, imaging options for broad range of infectious and inflammatory processes, and selected aspects of oncologic imaging. In addition, rapidly developing new techniques utilizing molecular imaging are discussed.

Recent Findings

The article describes nuclear medicine imaging modalities including gamma camera, SPECT, PET, and hybrid imaging (SPECT/CT, PET/CT, and PET/MR) in the context of established and emerging clinical applications. Areas of potential future development in nuclear medicine are discussed with emphasis on molecular imaging and implementation of new targeted tracers used in diagnostics and therapeutics (theranostics).

Summary

Nuclear medicine and molecular imaging provide many unique and novel options for the diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary diseases. This article reviews current applications for nuclear medicine and molecular imaging and selected future applications for radiopharmaceuticals and targeted molecular imaging techniques.

Modified staging system for pulmonary carcinoids on the basis of lung cancer TNM system

BACKGROUND

Pulmonary carcinoids are being staged along the lines of lung cancer American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) staging system. The current study evaluated the prognostic value of a modified staging system for patients with pulmonary carcinoid.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database (2004-2014) was searched through SEER*Stat program. Through recursive partitioning analysis and subsequent decision tree formation, suggested stages were constructed. Overall survival analyses were performed through Kaplan-Meier analysis. The cancer-specific Cox regression hazard (adjusted for age, gender, race, sub-site and surgery) was calculated and pairwise comparisons of hazard ratios were conducted.

RESULTS

A total of 6395 pulmonary carcinoid patients were recruited in the period from 2004-2014. Pairwise hazard ratio comparisons among different AJCC 8th stages were conducted and all comparisons were non-significant except for stage IIB vs. stage IIIA and stage IIIA vs. stage IIIB. Pairwise hazard ratio comparisons among different modified staging system stages were conducted and all comparisons were significant except for stage III vs. stage IV. C-statistic (using death from pulmonary carcinoid as the dependent variable) for AJCC 8th staging system was: 0.794 (SE 0.013; 95% CI 0.769-0.818); for AJCC 7th staging system was: 0.789 (SE 0.013; 95% CI 0.764-0.815), while c-statistic for the modified staging system was: 0.802 (SE 0.012; 95% CI 0.778-0.827).

CONCLUSION

The proposed modified staging system provided a simpler yet prognostically more relevant classification of pulmonary carcinoids compared to AJCC staging systems (both 7th and 8th editions).