Monday, November 27 | 8:10 a.m.-8:20 a.m. | M1-SSNMMI02-3 | Room E350
Here, Canadian research will highlight how PET/CT upstages locally advanced breast cancer to stage IV more often than conventional imaging.
In his talk, Ur Metser, MD, from University Health Network Research in Toronto, Ontario, Canada will present his team’s findings, which show that PET/CT detects more distant metastases than conventional staging. The team also found that fewer women undergoing PET/CT receive curative intent combined modality therapy.
Staging tests are performed for strategizing treatment in women who present with locally advanced breast cancer. If no metastases are detected, the treatment is combined modality therapy of curative intent. This is defined as neoadjuvant chemotherapy, surgery, and regional radiation.
The researchers highlighted that PET/CT can find more asymptomatic distant metastases than conventional staging, though they noted that current evidence is based on uncontrolled studies. In their study, they wanted to find out if PET/CT could identify more women with metastatic breast cancer than staging with usual imaging tests.
The team included data from 369 women. Of the total, 184 were randomized into the whole-body PET/CT cohort and 185 were randomized into a conventional staging group staging. They found that 43 PET/CT patients were upstaged to stage IV, compared with 21 women in the conventional staging group. This included an absolute difference of 12.3% (p = 0.002).
The researchers also found that as a result, treatment was changed in 35 of the PET/CT patients (81.3%) and 20 of the conventional staging patients (95.2%).
This led to 149 women (81%) in the PET/CT group receiving combined modality treatment compared to 165 (89.2%) in the conventional staging group., representing an absolute difference of 8.2% (p = 0.03).
The results demonstrate the potential of using a PET/CT staging strategy, according to the researchers. Find out their reasoning by sitting in on this session.
