To provide clinically useful gadolinium-free whole-body cancer staging of children and young adults with integrated positron emission tomography/magnetic resonance (PET/MR) imaging in less than 1 h.
In this prospective clinical trial, 20 children and young adults (11-30 years old, 6 male, 14 female) with solid tumors underwent 2-deoxy-2-[(18)F]fluoro-D-glucose ([(18)F]FDG) PET/MR on a 3T PET/MR scanner after intravenous injection of ferumoxytol (5 mg Fe/kg) and [(18)F]FDG (2-3 MBq/kg). Time needed for patient preparation, PET/MR image acquisition, and data processing was compared before (n = 5) and after (n = 15) time-saving interventions, using a Wilcoxon test. The ferumoxytol-enhanced PET/MR images were compared with clinical standard staging tests regarding radiation exposure and tumor staging results, using Fisher's exact tests.
Tailored workflows significantly reduced scan times from 36 to 24 min for head to mid thigh scans (p < 0.001). These streamlined PET/MR scans were obtained with significantly reduced radiation exposure (mean 3.4 mSv) compared to PET/CT with diagnostic CT (mean 13.1 mSv; p = 0.003). Using the iron supplement ferumoxytol "off label" as an MR contrast agent avoided gadolinium chelate administration. The ferumoxytol-enhanced PET/MR scans provided equal or superior tumor staging results compared to clinical standard tests in 17 out of 20 patients. Compared to PET/CT, PET/MR had comparable detection rates for pulmonary nodules with diameters of equal or greater than 5 mm (94 vs. 100 %), yet detected significantly fewer nodules with diameters of less than 5 mm (20 vs 100 %) (p = 0.03). [(18)F]FDG-avid nodules were detected with slightly higher sensitivity on the PET of the PET/MR compared to the PET of the PET/CT (59 vs 49 %).
Our streamlined ferumoxytol-enhanced PET/MR protocol provided cancer staging of children and young adults in less than 1 h with equivalent or superior clinical information compared to clinical standard staging tests. The detection of small pulmonary nodules with PET/MR needs to be improved.
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science
1
2%
Other
3
7%
Unknown
19
45%
Attention Score in Context
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 11. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 11 April 2021.
All research outputs
#3,527,168
of 28,921,639 outputs
Outputs from Molecular Imaging and Biology
#41
of 909 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#54,937
of 333,637 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Molecular Imaging and Biology
#1
of 9 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 28,921,639 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 87th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 909 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 6.0. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 95% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 333,637 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 83% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 9 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than all of them
