Application of whole-body positron emission tomography in the imaging of esophageal cancer: report of a case.

We describe herein a case of esophageal cancer in which both primary and metastatic lymph node foci were successfully imaged with whole-body positron emission tomography (PET) scanning. A 75-year-old woman with biopsy-proven squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus underwent whole-body PET scanning for staging evaluation. The patient was injected with 373.7 MBq [18F]-2-fluoro-2-D-deoxyglucose (FDG), and 60 min later, scanning was performed from the neck to the pelvis. The whole-body images showed intense FDG uptake in the primary lesion and multiple focal areas of increased FDG uptake in the mediastinum and abdomen, which corresponded to the lymph node foci confirmed by computed tomography (CT) scan. To our knowledge, this is the first report of whole-body PET scanning being applied in the imaging of esophageal cancer.