Annals of nuclear medicine
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Neuroimaging in ischemic stroke continues to be one of the most developing fields in nuclear medicine. Many studies have established the efficacy of blood flow and metabolism measurements in acute ischemic stroke. Although the release of recombinant tissue plasminogen activator in clinical practice has minimized the use of SPECT or PET in the first few hours of ischemic stroke onset, implementing these techniques into a set of initial examinations is still beneficial to exclude risky patients for reperfusion therapy beyond several hours after onset. ⋯ Ischemic penumbra can be visualized by means of perfusion imaging, central type benzodiazepine receptor imaging, and hypoxy imaging. In the later phase of subacute ischemic stroke, inflammation and apoptosis can be visualized by means of peripheral-type benzodiazepine receptor imaging and annexin V imaging, respectively. Imaging of the penumbra and cellular responses will help evaluate the effects of drugs and interventions for ischemic stroke, suggesting its potential as a marker of the efficacy of future therapeutic regimens.
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The objective of this study was to evaluate the incidence of incidental parotid masses with conventional whole-body ¹⁸F-deoxyglucose (FDG) PET/CT and assess the ability of PET/CT to characterize these unexpected parotid lesions. ⋯ Whole-body FDG-PET/CT at the time of surveying the entire body condition is helpful for detecting the asymptomatic parotid masses. Combined noncontrast CT is an essential evidence for improving the diagnostic accuracy of FDG-PET/CT for parotid masses.
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Estimation of postoperative forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) with radionuclide lung scintigraphy is frequently used to define functional operability in patients undergoing lung resection. We conducted a study to outline the reliability of planar quantitative lung perfusion scintigraphy (QLPS) with two different processing methods to estimate the postoperative lung function in patients with resectable lung disease. ⋯ PpoFEV1 values predicted by both the zone and LMMs overestimated the actual measured lung volumes in patients undergoing pulmonary resection in the early postoperative period. LMM is not superior to ZM.
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Elevated levels of serum carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) during follow-up suggest recurrence, which can be visualized by (18)F-FDG PET/CT. Since the magnitude of CEA elevation reflects cancer volume, the ability of PET/CT to detect recurrence in patients with only mildly elevated CEA might be limited. However, the accuracy of PET/CT in detecting recurrence associated with elevated CEA has not been fully assessed. We retrospectively evaluated the diagnostic performance of (18)F-FDG PET/CT postoperatively relative to CEA levels among patients with CRC. ⋯ The present findings showed that (18)F-FDG PET/CT could accurately detect recurrent CRC irrespective of the elevated CEA concentration.