Cervix carcinoma and incidental finding of medullary thyroid carcinoma by 18F-FDG PET/CT — clinical case

Abstract

Thyroid nodules are encountered in clinical practice during the diagnostic procedures or patients’ follow-up due to other diseases quite far from the thyroid gland with prevalence 4–50% in general population, depending on age, diagnostic method and race. The prevalence of thyroid nodules increases with age and their clarification should be done for their adequate treatment. An 18F-FDG PET/CT was done with a PET/CT scanner (Philips Gemini TF), consisting of dedicated lutetium orthosilicate full ring PET scanner and 16 slice CT. The PET/CT scan of the whole-body revealed on the CT portion a hypodense nodular lesion in the left lobe of the thyroid gland with increased uptake of 18F-FDG on the PET with SUV_max 10.3 and demonstrated a complete response to the induction therapy of the main oncological disease of the patient — squamous cell carcinoma. This clinical case demonstrates that whole-body 18F-FDG-PET/CT has an increasingly important role in the early evaluation of thyroid cancer as a second independent malignant localization. Focal thyroid lesion with high risk of thyroid malignancy was incidentally found on 18F-FDG PET/CT.