Imaging of Adrenal Tumors using Positron Emission Tomography PET: Comparison of Benign and Malignant Lesions

Abstract

The detection of an adrenal lesion in patients with a known malignancy poses a diagnostic problem in terms of whether the lesion is a meta-static growth or a benign “incidentaloma.” In addition, the accurate diagnosis of malignant adrenal involvement in cancer patients is required for evaluation of treatment approaches and prognostic assessments. Moreover, non-invasive evaluation of adrenal lesions is desirable to avoid unnecessary complications associated with adrenal biopsy. Dynamic computed tomography (CT) and chemical shift magnetic resonance (MR) imaging have been used to characterize adrenal lesions, with diagnostic accuracies of 81%–100% having been achieved. Preliminary results suggest that fluorine-18 (18F) fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) can help characterize metabolically adrenal lesions and differentiate adrenal metastases from benign lesions. In recent