Q.Freeze helps increase staging accuracy

PET acquisition
Reconstruction: VUE Point HD with SharpIR*
Post injection time: 63 min
Acquisition time:

Standard:1.5 min/bed
Q.Freeze: 30 sec/bin

Dose: 260 MBq of ¹⁸F-FDG

CT acquisition
Whole-body acquisition for localization and attenuation purpose.
4D acquisition both for CTAC and diagnosis.

Patient History
Patient treated surgically for a left colon adenocarcinoma followed by several chemotherapy cycles.
After 2 years, an increase of the serum marker ( GICA 76 U/ml) is noticed. Patient submitted to contrast enhanced CT with a suspicious relapse in the colon hepatic flexure. The colonoscopy showed tubular polypoid lesion with moderate dysplasia. No other pathological findings were found.
Patient submitted the for PET/CT for staging of the disease.

Findings
Standard Acquisition:
Small focus uptake area localized on the gastric wall difficult to classify . Several mismatch artifacts due to the patient breathing on the abdominal area.

Q.Freeze acquisition:
The focal uptake area is clearly localized in the pancreatic tail as well as new pathological uptake area corresponding to a peritoneal nodule.

Conclusion
After the motion correction performed by the Q.Freeze technology the localization of the lesion and extent of the disease is confirmed. Correctly localizing the metastasis benefited the patient with a more accurate staging.