Sawant Devendra A, Razmaria Ali Aria, Pandit-Taskar Neeta
Department of Radiology, Molecular Imaging and Therapy Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, 1275 York Avenue, New York, NY 10065, USA.
Radiol Case Rep. 2023 May 23;18(8):2552-2557. doi: 10.1016/j.radcr.2023.04.046. eCollection 2023 Aug.
The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic continues to be a major public health concern affecting millions of people globally. The COVID-19 vaccination has implications in medical assessment of cancer patients especially undergoing diagnostic imaging such as F-fluoro-deoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography with computed tomography (PET/CT). The inflammatory changes following vaccination can cause false positive findings on imaging. We present a case of a patient with esophageal carcinoma who had F-FDG PET/CT scan, 8 weeks following booster dose of Moderna COVID-19 vaccination, which showed widespread FDG avid reactive lymph nodes and intense splenic uptake for prolonged duration of approximately 8 months (34 weeks) probably representing generalized immune response. It is important from radiological/nuclear medicine perspective to recognize imaging features of such rare effect of COVID-19 vaccination, which can pose a challenge in assessing F-FDG PET/CT scans in cancer patients. It has also opened new avenues for future research evaluating such COVID-19 vaccine-related prolonged systemic immunological response in cancer patients.
2019年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行仍是一个重大的公共卫生问题，影响着全球数百万人。COVID-19疫苗接种对癌症患者的医学评估有影响，尤其是对正在接受诊断成像检查的患者，如F-氟脱氧葡萄糖（FDG）正电子发射断层扫描与计算机断层扫描（PET/CT）。接种疫苗后的炎症变化可导致成像出现假阳性结果。我们报告一例食管癌患者，在接种Moderna COVID-19疫苗加强针8周后进行了F-FDG PET/CT扫描，结果显示广泛的FDG摄取活跃的反应性淋巴结以及脾脏持续强烈摄取约8个月（34周），这可能代表全身性免疫反应。从放射学/核医学角度认识COVID-19疫苗这种罕见效应的成像特征很重要，因为这可能给癌症患者的F-FDG PET/CT扫描评估带来挑战。它也为未来评估癌症患者中这种与COVID-19疫苗相关的长期全身免疫反应开辟了新的研究途径。
