The role of Nuclear Medicine in the management of thymomas

Abstract

AIM OF THE STUDY: To evaluate the role of nuclear medicine techniques in the management of patients with thymoma.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: The Authors performed a review of the literature about the usefulness of traditional nuclear medicine and positron emission tomography in patients with thymic tumours.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Nuclear medicine imaging can provide additional information in cases of thymoma such as in differential diagnosis between thymic tumours, staging and restaging. Thallium-201 (201Tl), 99mTc-sestamibi and 99mTctetrofosmin are useful tumour-imaging agent. Another radiopharmaceutical useful in the management of thymomas is 111In-pentetreotide, a somatostatin analogue, used to define the receptor status and the extent of disease in malignant thymomas. Positron emission tomography (PET) is a powerful diagnostic tool for diagnosis, staging and restaging of neoplasms in general. The most used PET radiopharmaceutical is the fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG), a glucose analogue. The uptake of FDG reflects the metabolic activity of organs and neoplasms and correlates with the tumour growth rate. There is a paucity of literature on the use of PET scanning in the diagnosis of thymoma. Further perspective studies with a larger number of cases, considering the development of hybrid imaging PET-CT and new PET radiopharmaceuticals, may increase the role of nuclear medicine in the diagnostic and therapeutic management of thymic neoplasms.