Diagnostic and Clinical Impact of 18F-FDG PET/CT in Staging and Restaging Soft-Tissue Sarcomas of the Extremities and Trunk: Mono-Institutional Retrospective Study of a Sarcoma Referral Center

Background: Soft-tissue sarcomas (STS) represent a wide heterogeneous class of rare tumors. The exact role (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission/computed tomography ((18)F-FDG PET/CT) in the evaluation of STS is not well established. The aim of the present study was to evaluate how the use of (18)F-FDG PET/CT in STS could influence patient therapy planning, looking for a possible added value over computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging—the most used modalities in the study of STS. Differences in SUV(max) according to histologic subtype and tumor grade were also considered. Methods: a total of 345 consecutive (18)F-FDG PET/CT scans performed for initial staging (n = 171) or for suspected disease relapse (n = 174) in 282 patients with STS extracted from the local Information System database were retrospectively reviewed. Results: (18)F-FDG PET/CT altered therapy planning in 80 cases (16.4% for staging and 29.9% in restaging), both for disease upstaging (58.8%) and downstaging (41.2%) Conclusions: (18)F-FDG PET/CT could significantly influence management of patients with STS, particularly for restaging.