Distribution of Patients Who Underwent Oncological FDG PET/CT Imaging in the Nuclear Medicine Unit of a Tertiary Care Hospital According to Cancer Type

INTRODUCTION: This study aimed to investigate the distribution of oncology patients who underwent positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET/CT) imaging using 2-[18F]-Fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (FDG) radiopharmaceutical, according to cancer type.
METHODS: Our study included 2595 (F/M: 1367/1228) patients who were referred to our Nuclear Medicine department for oncological FDG PET/CT imaging in 2023. Patients are divided into groups according to their cancer type. The frequency of imaging number according to cancer types was obtained by proportioning the number of imaging types of cancer in each group to the total number of imaging.
RESULTS: The most common cancer type in FDG PET/CT imaging performed in our department is breast cancer (20.5%). The frequency of imaging for malignancies originating from the lung, stomach and esophagus was calculated as 19.6%, 10.5% and 7.6%. Oncological FDG PET/CT imaging performed for these four organs constitutes 58.2% of the FDG PET/CT imaging performed in our department.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: When the distribution of cancer types in our country is evaluated, lung and breast cancers are the most common cancers. It is known that stomach and esophageal cancers are less common and come after colorectal cancers. However, considering the number of imaging studies for esophageal and stomach malignancies in our patients referred to our unit, the incidences of these cancers in our region are higher than in the whole country.