CC BY 4.0 · World J Nucl Med 2024; 23(02): 103-109
DOI: 10.1055/s-0044-1786012
Original Article

The Role of 68Ga PSMA Imaging in Evaluating Adrenal Lesions in Prostate Cancer Patients

1   Department of Nuclear Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Trakya University, Edirne, Türkiye
,
Büşra Özdemir Günay
1   Department of Nuclear Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Trakya University, Edirne, Türkiye
,
Fethi Emre Ustabaşıoğlu
2   Department of Radiology, Faculty of Medicine, Trakya University, Edirne, Türkiye
,
Selçuk Korkmaz
3   Department of Biostatistics, Faculty of Medicine, Trakya University, Edirne, Türkiye
› Author Affiliations

Abstract

Objectives Gallium-68 prostate-specific membrane antigen (68Ga-PSMA) imaging is valuable for staging because an accurate diagnosis, metastatic or nonmetastatic for prostate cancer patients, is required for deciding to treatment approaches and prognostic assessment. The aim of this study was primarily to distinguish between benign and metastatic adrenal gland lesions detected during 68Ga-PSMA positron emission tomography (PET)/CT imaging, to evaluate the presence of factors predicting its development, and then to determine the life expectancy of patients with metastatic adrenal lesions.

Materials and Methods We performed a database search for PET/CT records generated from June 2016 to February 2021 for “adrenal gland” in report for patients who underwent 68Ga-PSMA examination with prostate cancer patients.

Results Twenty-three patients (10 benign and 13 metastatic) were included in this study. The total prostate-specific antigen, adrenal gland size, adrenal gland density, and maximum standardized uptake (SUVmax) values are significantly different between groups (p < 0.05). On receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, the SUVmax cutoff value > 6.8 provided both sensitivity and specificity of 100%. However, with 29 mm as the adrenal gland size cutoff and 21.2 as Hounsfield unit, the sensitivity and specificity were 56.2 and 92.3%, and 93.8 and 92.3%, respectively. The survival of the benign and metastatic groups was compared and a statistically significant difference was found (p = 0.006). The presence of pelvic lymph nodes was statistically negatively affected the surveillance between the groups.

Conclusion The presence of atypical metastases such as adrenal gland is not insignificant in prostate cancer patients. Because of this degree of impact on patient management, accurate staging by imaging with 68Ga-PSMA should be an integral part of prostate cancer management.



Publication History

Article published online:
23 April 2024

© 2024. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, permitting unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction so long as the original work is properly cited. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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