Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Radiol. Mar 28, 2016; 8(3): 322-330
Published online Mar 28, 2016. doi: 10.4329/wjr.v8.i3.322
Simultaneous whole body 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography magnetic resonance imaging for evaluation of pediatric cancer: Preliminary experience and comparison with 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography computed tomography
Brian S Pugmire, Alexander R Guimaraes, Ruth Lim, Alison M Friedmann, Mary Huang, David Ebb, Howard Weinstein, Onofrio A Catalano, Umar Mahmood, Ciprian Catana, Michael S Gee
Brian S Pugmire, Department of Radiology, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH 45229, United States
Alexander R Guimaraes, Division of Body Imaging, Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, OR 97239, United States
Alexander R Guimaraes, Onofrio A Catalano, Michael S Gee, Division of Abdominal Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, United States
Alexander R Guimaraes, Umar Mahmood, Ciprian Catana, Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Charlestown, MA 02129, United States
Ruth Lim, Umar Mahmood, Division of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, United States
Ruth Lim, Michael S Gee, Division of Pediatric Imaging, MassGeneral Hospital for Children, Boston, MA 02114, United States
Alison M Friedmann, Mary Huang, David Ebb, Howard Weinstein, Division of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology, MassGeneral Hospital for Children, Boston, MA 02114, United States
Author contributions: Gee MS was the principal investigator and designed the study; Pugmire BS and Gee MS participated in the acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of the data, and drafted the initial manuscript; Guimaraes AR, Lim R, Catalano OA, Mahmood U and Catana C were involved in revising the intellectual content of the data; Friedmann AM, Huang M, Ebb D, Weinstein H participated in patient recruitment.
Institutional review board statement: This study was reviewed and approved by the Dana Farber Cancer Institute Institutional Review Board.
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no relevant financial interests to disclose.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Michael S Gee, MD, Division of Pediatric Imaging, MassGeneral Hospital for Children, 55 Fruit St, Boston, MA 02114, United States. msgee@partners.org
Telephone: +1-61-77244207 Fax: +1-61-77268360
Received: September 30, 2015
Peer-review started: October 1, 2015
First decision: November 4, 2015
Revised: November 18, 2015
Accepted: January 5, 2016
Article in press: January 7, 2016
Published online: March 28, 2016
Core Tip

Core tip: Combined positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance imaging (PET-MRI) is an exciting new imaging modality; however, its clinical role remains undefined. PET-MRI has distinct potential advantages for pediatric patients, but the data regarding PET-MRI in children remains limited. We report our experience using PET-MRI in pediatric oncology patients. We found excellent correlation between PET-MRI and PET-computed tomography (CT) maximum standardized uptake values as well as excellent test performance characteristics for PET-MRI using PET-CT as a reference. We also include an evaluation of MRI diffusion weighted imaging in comparison to PET-MRI and PET-CT, which has not been reported previously in the literature.