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World J Radiol. Jul 28, 2014; 6(7): 493-501
Published online Jul 28, 2014. doi: 10.4329/wjr.v6.i7.493
Published online Jul 28, 2014. doi: 10.4329/wjr.v6.i7.493
Nuclear imaging to characterize adrenal tumors: Comparison with MRI
Simone Maurea, Pier Paolo Mainenti, Valeria Romeo, Carmine Mollica, Marco Salvatore, Medicina Nucleare e Radiologia, Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche Avanzate, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (UNINA), 80123 Napoli, Italy
Simone Maurea, Pier Paolo Mainenti, Valeria Romeo, Carmine Mollica, Marco Salvatore, Fondazione SDN (IRCCS), 80123 Napoli, Italy
Simone Maurea, Pier Paolo Mainenti, Valeria Romeo, Carmine Mollica, Marco Salvatore, Istituto di Biostrutture e Bioimmagini (IBB), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), 80123 Napoli, Italy
Author contributions: All authors contributed to this work.
Correspondence to: Simone Maurea, MD, PhD, Medicina Nucleare e Radiologia, Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche Avanzate, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (UNINA), via Ernesto Murolo n. 5, 80123 Napoli, Italy. maurea@unina.it
Telephone: +39-81–7463560-2039 Fax: +39-81-5457081
Received: January 21, 2014
Revised: May 30, 2014
Accepted: June 14, 2014
Published online: July 28, 2014
Revised: May 30, 2014
Accepted: June 14, 2014
Published online: July 28, 2014
Core Tip
Core tip: This manuscript deals with tumor imaging characterization in patients with adrenal tumors; in particular, we discuss our results obtained in three different groups of patients with incidentalomas, adenomas and pheochromocytomas; on the basis of our experience, nuclear imaging modalities using different radiotracers such as labeled nor-cholesterol, metaiodobenzylguanidine and fluorine-deoxy-glucose are able to better characterize, compared with magnetic resonance (MR), adrenal tumors; the functional as well as metabolic features of radionuclide imaging, compared to anatomical characteristics of MR, may explain the better performance of nuclear imaging in characterizing adrenal tumors.