Abstract
Objective: The objective of this study was to establish the diagnostic significance of breast incidentalomas detected on whole-body fluorine-18 (18F) fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT). Materials and Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the data of 3868 patients who underwent 18F FDG PET/CT at our institution, for the presence of hypermetabolic focus in the breasts. Patients with known breast cancer or with the previous history of breast cancer were excluded from the study. Ten out of remaining 3868 patients had abnormal focal uptake in the breast. We, therefore, enrolled these 10 patients with histopathology confirmation in this study. Results: Among all 3868 patients, 10 (0.25%) patients demonstrated incidental focal uptake in breast parenchyma. All of these 10 patients were females. Histopathology examination confirmed malignancy in 8 out of 10 patients (80%), these included invasive ductal cancer in 4 patients, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2 patients, and metastasis from rectal cancer and endometrial cancer, respectively, in 2 patients. Of the 10 patients, 2 (20%) had lesions that were confirmed to be benign. Both of these were proven to be fibroadenomas. The mean maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax) on FDG-PET/CT scans was 1.35 ± 1.2 in the benign cases versus 3.8 ± 1.83 in the malignant cases. This difference was statistically insignificant (P = 0.056). All malignant lesions had SUVmax 2.0 or greater. The mean size differed significantly between the benign and malignant groups (2.55 ± 0.63 vs. 1.31 ± 0.44 cm) (P = 0.005) with benign lesions being bigger in size. Conclusion: Unexpected focal areas of hypermetabolic activity discovered in the breast at the time of PET/CT are associated with a high likelihood of malignancy in as many as 80% of cases. Therefore, any suspicious activity discovered in the breast on PET/CT should be evaluated until a diagnosis is found.
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