Open AccessClinical Utility of 18 F-FDG PET/CT in brachial plexopathy secondary to metastatic breast cancer
Author(s) -
Piyush Chandra,
Nilendu Purandare,
Archi Agrawal,
Sneha Shah,
Venkatesh Rangarajan
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
indian journal of nuclear medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.261
H-Index - 13
eISSN - 0972-3919
pISSN - 0974-0244
DOI - 10.4103/0972-3919.178263
Subject(s) - brachial plexopathy , medicine , breast cancer , radiology , positron emission tomography , magnetic resonance imaging , axilla , brachial plexus , cancer , nuclear medicine , surgery
Role of fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) in breast cancer is rapidly evolving. Brachial plexopathy is a rare clinical entity in follow-up of operated breast cancer patients, who presents with disease recurrence in the axilla. Conventionally, magnetic resonance imaging is the imaging modality of choice for diagnostic evaluation in these cases and only few case reports/short studies have explored the utility of PET/CT in this clinical indication. We present here a short case series to demonstrate the utility of PET/CT as an important adjunctive imaging modality to magnetic resonance to supplement diagnosis of brachial plexopathy, differentiate radiation-induced brachial plexopathy from neoplastic plexopathy, accurately restage the disease and to monitor response to chemotherapy.