[Application of ¹⁸F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography in preoperative assessment of hilar cholangiocarcinoma].

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the value of positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) in the preoperative assessment of hilar cholangiocarcinoma (HC).

METHODS

A retrospective analysis was performed for 32 HC patients. There were 14 females and 18 males with a mean age of 56 years old. All cases were confirmed by surgery, pathology or other diagnostic modalities. ¹⁸F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET/CT was performed preoperatively in all patients. The images were interpreted and compared with the operative and pathological outcomes in each case.

RESULTS

Among them, according to the Bismuth-Corlette classification, the number of types I, II, IIIa, IIIb and IV patients, were 3, 2, 4, 8 and 15 respectively. Radical tumor resection was performed in 16 patients. Among them, 3, 2, 1, 7 and 3 patient belonged to types I, II, IIIa, IIIb and IV respectively. Seven patients underwent palliative surgery and 9 had only surgical exploration. The detecting accuracy of PET/CT in primary tumors Bismuth-Corlette classification reached 81.25% (26/32). The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of PET/CT in detecting lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis were 64.7%, 86.7%, 75.0% and 41.7%, 95.0%, 75.0% respectively. The concordance rate of preoperative evaluation of respectability by PET/CT and intraoperative evaluation was 75.0%. No significant difference existed between PET/CT and the surgical and histopathologic findings in the evaluation of curative resectability for HC (χ² = 0.125, P > 0.05).

CONCLUSION

¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT is of great value in the diagnosis of HC, as well as in detecting lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis. Thus ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT is helpful in the preoperative assessment of resectability for HC.