[Indium-111-DTPA-phenyl-pentetreotide somatostatin receptors' scintigraphy in the evaluation of patients with suspected gastro-entero-pancreatic tumors. Comparison with computerized tomography].

Gastro-entero-pancreatic tumors (GEP) contain, in their majority, somatostatin receptors. In-111-DTPA-phenyl-pentetreotide has been proved to have high affinity for somatostatin receptors subtypes 2, 3 and 5. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the utility of (111)In-DTPA-O somatostatin receptors' scintigraphy (SRS) in the diagnosis of suspected GEP. Thirty-five consecutive patients (17 males and 18 females-mean age 57.9+/-7.6) with GEP as a possible diagnosis were enrolled in the study. The primary diagnosis was diarrheic syndrome susceptive of intestinal carcinoid tumor (24 patients), carcinoid of the rectum (2 patients), adenocarcinoma of the pancreas (2 patients), insulinoma (2 patients), gastrinoma (3 patients) and hepatocellular carcinoma (2 patients). All patients were submitted to computerized tomography (CT) of the thorax and the abdomen and pentetreotide SRS was performed 4 h (total body and SPET acquisition) and 24 h (planar views), post iv injection of 185 MBq of the radiolabeled compound. Results showed: Four of the patients were false positive diagnosed as having inflammatory intestinal disease and gallbladder dilatation. At the time of the evaluation, 14 of the remaining patients were free of disease, concerning secondary involvement. In these cases, CT and SRS studies matched each other, with no pathological lesions and no abnormal accumulation of the radiopharmaceutical respectively. Concerning pathological cases, only one SRS study in a patient with rectum carcinoid was normal, with liver lesions in the CT study. These lesions were considered as subtypes 2, 3 and 5 somatostatin receptors negative. SRS revealed three lesions more than CT. According to these results, sensitivity of SRS study was 93.8% and specificity 86.9%. The authors believe that molecular imaging of somatostatin receptors, is a sensitive method for the evaluation of patients with GEP tumors. However, in cases of intestinal disease, we should be aware of false positive results due to inflammatory processes and the presence of lymphocyte infiltration.