Monitoring of postoperative breast cancer patients using positron emission tomography/computed tomography

Background Positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) is a sophisticated imaging modality that integrates metabolic data with detailed anatomical visualizations. Aim This work aimed to assess the role of PET-CT in postoperative monitoring of breast cancer patients. Patients and methods This prospective study was carried out on 30 female patients. Inclusion criteria: monitoring of postoperative cases after 1 year or more, postoperative cases with a recent clinical complaint, clinical, laboratory, and/or radiologic suspicion of locoregional metastatic recurrence and distant metastasis. Results The most common site of metastatic lesions in postoperative patients was bone metastasis 13 (43.33%) followed by pulmonary metastasis seven (23.33%). Standardized uptake value (SUV) was measured in different sites. Bone metastasis showed a high SUV, while the lowest SUV was found in the operative bed and chest wall. The recurrence rate at operative beds detected by PET-CT was 17 (56.7%), and detected by mammography was 10 (33.3%). Recurrence rate detected by histopathology was 19 (95%). Strong agreement of PET/CT results with biopsy results with the kappa value of 0.789 compared to histopathology. The diagnostic accuracy of PET-CT was highlighted by its high sensitivity (83.3%) and specificity (94.4%), further reinforcing its reliability. The kappa value of 0.789 indicated a strong agreement with the biopsy results. Conclusions The significant role of PET-CT in the postoperative monitoring of breast cancer patients, particularly in detecting metastasis and assessing the extent of disease recurrence. PET-CT has shown superior sensitivity and specificity in identifying locoregional and operative bed recurrence also, distance metastases, and overall tumor presence.