Reproducibility of PET brain mapping of cancer patients

Twenty German cancer patients (56.9+/-12.7 years old) without brain metastasis underwent neurological PET. The acquired brain data were compared to the data of ten age and sex-matched controls (53.6+/-15. 7). Scores of Zung's Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS) obtained from 15 out of the 20 patients suggested they might be mildly depressed. Scores of Taylor's Manifest Anxiety Scale (MAS), used for additional psychological evaluation, were close to normal distribution. Hypometabolic areas in the German cancer patients were compared with those demonstrated in our previous study in Japanese cancer patients. Common findings in both studies were observed in the limbic structures, such as the anterior and posterior cingulate gyri, the basolateral frontal cortices, as well as in the basal ganglia (especially the caudate nucleus) and frontal cortex. These results are in accordance with many previous PET studies on major depression. The results show that the positron emission tomography and (18)F-fluoro-deoxyglucose ((18)FDG-PET) brain mapping results could be partially reproduced, and suggest that PET brain mapping of cancer patients has a potential clinical application to the field of psycho-oncology and cancer patient care.