The Role of Fluorine-18-Fluorodeoxyglucose Positron Emission Tomography in Aggressive Histological Subtypes of Thyroid Cancer: An Overview

Table 1

Main findings about FDG-PET or PET/CT in Hürthle cell thyroid carcinoma, anaplastic thyroid carcinoma, and poorly differentiated thyroid carcinoma.

Type	Authors	Year	Device	Patients	Sensitivity	Specificity	Comments
HCTC	Pryma et al. [16]	2006	PET or PET/CT	44	95.8%	95%	FDG-PET has excellent diagnostic accuracy in HCTC, improving on CT and radioiodine scintigraphy. Intense FDG uptake is indicator of a poor prognosis. Patients with HCTC should undergo FDG-PET as part of their initial postoperative staging and periodically to screen for occult recurrence, particularly in patients with elevated serum thyroglobulin
	Lowe et al. [17]	2003	PET	12	91.6%	N.A.	HCTC demonstrates intense FDG uptake. PET improves disease detection and disease management in HCTC relative to anatomic or radioiodine imaging. FDG-PET should be recommended for the evaluation and clinical management of HCTC
	Plotkin et al. [18]	2002	PET	17	100%	60%	This study supports the efficiency of FDG-PET in the followup of HCTC
ATC	Grabellus et al. [9]	2012	PET/CT	4	100%	N.A.	ATC shows intense FDG uptake. FDG-PET/CT is an important imaging modality for ATC
	Poisson et al. [19]	2010	PET/CT	20	100%	N.A.	FDG-PET/CT appears to be the reference imaging modality for ATC at initial staging and seems promising in the early evaluation of treatment response and followup
	Bogsrud et al. [20]	2008	PET	16	100%	N.A.	FDG-PET may improve disease detection and have an impact on the management of patients with ATC relative to other imaging modalities
PDTC	Grabellus et al. [9]	2012	PET/CT	22	86.3%	N.A.	PDTC shows intermediate FDG uptake between DTC and ATC. FDG-PET/CT is an important imaging modality for PDTC

Legend: N.A.: not available; DTC: differentiated thyroid carcinoma; PDTC: poorly differentiated thyroid carcinoma; ATC: anaplastic thyroid carcinoma; HCTC: Hürthle cell thyroid carcinoma.