• Maria Cristina Marzola, Sotirios Chondrogiannis, Gaia Grassetto, Lucia Rampin, Anna Margherita Maffione, Alice Ferretti, Giuseppe Opocher, Francesca Schiavi, Patrick M Colletti, and Domenico Rubello.
• From the *Department of Nuclear Medicine, PET/CT Centre, †Medical Physics Unit, "Santa Maria della Misericordia Hospital", Rovigo, Italy; ‡Department of Medicine-DIMED, University of Padova, Padova, Italy; §Familial Cancer Clinic & Oncoendocrinology, Veneto Institute of Oncology, IRCCS, Milan, Italy; and ¶Department of Radiology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA.
• Clin Nucl Med. 2014 Jan 1; 39 (1): e53-8.

PurposeThis study aims to evaluate the role of F-DOPA PET/CT in staging and follow-up of paraganglioma syndromes succinate dehydrogenase (SDH)-mutation-related patients, comparing F-DOPA PET/CT results with morphological imaging and biochemical results.Patients And MethodsWe retrospectively studied 10 consecutive patients (3 F, 7 M, mean age 32 yrs), all with a genetically demonstrated SDH mutation (5 SDH-D, 4 SDH-B, and 1 SDH-C) and all addressed to F-DOPA PET/CT scan. Seven patients had already been operated on for one or more pheochromocytomas and/or paragangliomas and were submitted to F-DOPA PET/CT scan according to clinical, biochemical, or radiological suspicion of recurrence, while 3 were only genetically positive, with no previous symptom/sign of the disease. For all patients, biochemical analysis (plasma and/or urinary catecholamine) and results of high-resolution morphological imaging studies (CT and/or MRI) were available. Histologic/cytologic findings or imaging and biochemical follow-up were taken as gold standard in all cases.ResultsSeven out of 10 patients showed one or more areas of pathological F-DOPA accumulation. PET/CT demonstrated the presence of the disease in 4/6 patients with no increase in catecholamine levels ("biochemically silent"). Positive detection rate was 100% in SDH-D and 40% in "non-SDHD". Analyzing per lesion, F-DOPA PET/CT demonstrated more lesions than anatomical imaging (16 vs. 7) especially in head and neck paragangliomas.ConclusionsF-DOPA PET/CT seems to be the more accurate method for staging and restaging patients with SDH-mutations-related paraganglioma syndromes. F-DOPA is particularly useful in detecting head and neck and biochemically silent paragangliomas, and also in apparently healthy mutation-carrying people.

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