Diagnostic and Clinical Impact of 18F-FDG PET/CT in Staging and Restaging Soft-Tissue Sarcomas of the Extremities and Trunk: Mono-Institutional Retrospective Study of a Sarcoma Referral Center.

Background: Soft-tissue sarcomas (STS) represent a wide heterogeneous class of rare tumors. The exact role(18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission/computed tomography (F-18-FDG PET/CT) in the evaluation of STS is not well established. The aim of the present study was to evaluate how the use of(18)F-FDG PET/CT in STS could influence patient therapy planning, looking for a possible added value over computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging-the most used modalities in the study of STS. Differences in SUV(max)according to histologic subtype and tumor grade were also considered. Methods: a total of 345 consecutive(18)F-FDG PET/CT scans performed for initial staging (n= 171) or for suspected disease relapse (n= 174) in 282 patients with STS extracted from the local Information System database were retrospectively reviewed. Results:F-18-FDG PET/CT altered therapy planning in 80 cases (16.4% for staging and 29.9% in restaging), both for disease upstaging (58.8%) and downstaging (41.2%) Conclusions:F-18-FDG PET/CT could significantly influence management of patients with STS, particularly for restaging.