Diagnostic value of ⁶⁸Ga-labelled prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) PET/CT imaging for renal cell carcinoma

View Poster

INTRODUCTION

As the prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) is overexpressed in tumor with neovasculature including renal cell carcinoma (RCC), our study evaluated the diagnostic value of Ga-labelled PSMA PET/CT imaging for RCC.

METHODS

38 patients were involved in this study, in which 18 patients underwent ⁶⁸Ga-PSMA PET/CT before robot-assisted laparoscopic radical or partial nephrectomy while 20 were diagnosed with metastases after ⁶⁸Ga-PSMA PET/CT scan. SUV_max was calculated for both primary RCCs and PET-positive metastatic lesions.

RESULTS

The mean SUV_max of the primary RCCs was 9.46±7.82 (Range 1.2-26.79). Clear cell RCC presented higher PSMA uptake (SUV_max: 16.68±5.90) while other pathological types displayed a low SUV_max value (less than 10). Additionally, for clear cell RCC metastatic patients, ⁶⁸Ga-PSMA PET/CT image showed intense uptake in bone and lymph node metastatic lesions. Small lung metastases were PET-negative. ⁶⁸Ga-labelled PSMA PET/CT was not sensitive for metastatic lesions of non-clear cell RCC.

CONCLUSION

PSMA based PET/CT imaging provided great diagnostic value on RCC. It could not only identify pathological pattern for primary lesions but detect metastases. Therefore, ⁶⁸Ga-labelled PSMA PET/CT has been proved as a promising method for RCC diagnosis.

Funding: None