Open AccessDoes PET/CT Aid in Detecting Primary Carcinoma in Patients with Skeletal Metastases of Unknown Primary?
Author(s) -
Joshua M. Lawrenz,
J. Gordon,
Jaiben George,
C. Michael Haben,
Brian P. Rubin,
Hakan Ilaslan,
Nathan W. Mesko,
Lukas M. Nystrom
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
clinical orthopaedics and related research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.178
H-Index - 204
eISSN - 1528-1132
pISSN - 0009-921X
DOI - 10.1097/corr.0000000000001241
Subject(s) - medicine , positron emission tomography , radiology , biopsy , carcinoma , primary tumor , metastasis , cancer , adenocarcinoma , primary bone , metastatic carcinoma , pathology
Patients older than 40 years presenting with osteolytic bone lesions are likely to have a diagnosis of carcinoma, even if they had no prior cancer diagnosis. For patients with no prior cancer diagnosis, there is a well-accepted algorithm to determine a potential primary site. That algorithm, however, leaves approximately 15% of people without a detectable primary tumor site, making treatment decisions extremely difficult. Positron emission tomography (PET) fused with CT, more commonly known as PET/CT, has emerged as an important staging modality for many other malignancies but has been used in a very limited fashion in musculoskeletal oncology.