Given the high risk of systemic relapse following initial therapy for muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC), improved pretreatment staging is needed. We evaluated the incremental value of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (FDG-PET/CT) after standard conventional staging, in the largest cohort of MIBC patients to date. This is a retrospective analysis of 711 consecutive patients with invasive urothelial bladder cancer who underwent staging contrast-enhanced CT (chest and abdomen) and FDG-PET/CT in a tertiary referral center between 2011 and 2020. We recorded the clinical stage before and after FDG-PET/CT and treatment recommendation based on the stage before and after FDG-PET/CT. Clinical stage changed after FDG-PET/CT in 184/711 (26%) patients. Consequently, the recommended treatment strategy based on imaging changed in 127/711 (18%) patients. In 65/711 (9.1%) patients, potential curative treatment changed to palliative treatment because of the detection of distant metastases by FDG-PET/CT. Fifty (7.0%) patients were selected for neoadjuvant/induction chemotherapy based on FDG-PET/CT. Moreover, FDG-PET/CT detected lesions suspicious for second primary tumors in 15%; a second primary malignancy was confirmed in 28/711 (3.9%), leading to treatment change in ten (1.4%) patients. Contrarily 57/711 (8.1%) had false positive secondary findings. In conclusion, FDG-PET/CT provides important incremental staging information, which potentially influences clinical management in 18% of MIBC patients, but leads to false positive results as well. PATIENT SUMMARY: In this report, we investigated the impact of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (FDG-PET/CT) scanning on treatment of bladder cancer patients. We found that FDG-PET/CT potentially influences the treatment of almost one-fifth of patients. We therefore suggest performing FDG-PET/CT as part of bladder cancer staging.
European urology oncology. 2021 Feb 11 [Epub ahead of print]
Charlotte S Voskuilen, Erik J van Gennep, Sarah M H Einerhand, Erik Vegt, Maarten L Donswijk, Annemarie Bruining, Henk G van der Poel, Simon Horenblas, Kees Hendricksen, Bas W G van Rhijn, Laura S Mertens
Department of Urology, The Netherlands Cancer Institute-Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital, Amsterdam, The Netherlands., Department of Urology, The Netherlands Cancer Institute-Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Department of Urology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands., Department of Nuclear Medicine, The Netherlands Cancer Institute-Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Erasmus MC University Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands., Department of Nuclear Medicine, The Netherlands Cancer Institute-Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital, Amsterdam, The Netherlands., Department of Radiology, The Netherlands Cancer Institute-Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital, Amsterdam, The Netherlands., Department of Urology, The Netherlands Cancer Institute-Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Department of Urology, Caritas St. Josef Medical Center, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany., Department of Urology, The Netherlands Cancer Institute-Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Electronic address: .