Correlation of immunohistopathological expression of somatostatin receptor 2 with standardised uptake values in 68Ga-DOTATOC PET/CT
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Updated: Jun 30, 2026
A Practical Guide for the Production and PET/CT Imaging of 68Ga-DOTATATE for Neuroendocrine Tumors in Daily Clinical Practice
Published on: April 17, 2019
Matthias Miederer1, Stefan Seidl, Andreas Buck
1Department of Nuclear Medicine, Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München, Ismaningerstrasse 22, 81675, München, Germany. mail@matthiasmiederer.de
Purpose:
In clinical routine somatostatin analogue positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) such as (68)Ga-DOTA-Tyr-octreotide (DOTATOC)-PET/CT could substitute conventional (111)In-Octreotide scintigraphy. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) for somatostatin receptor 2 (SSTR2) might be a tool to predict positivity of (68)Ga-DOTATOC in patients where initial staging was not performed, e.g., in incidental findings. We therefore compared a score of SSTR2-IHC with the in vivo standard uptake value (SUV) of preoperative or prebiopsy (68)Ga-DOTATOC PET/CT.
Materials And Methods:
In 18 patients, (68)Ga-DOTATOC PET/CT scans were quantified with SUV calculations and correlated to a cell membrane-based SSTR2-IHC score (ranging from 0 to 3).
Results:
Negative IHC scores were consistent with SUV values below 10. Furthermore, all score 2 and 3 specimens corresponded with high SUV values (above 15).
Conclusion:
SSTR2-IHC scores correlated well with SUV values and we propose to use SSTR2 immunohistochemistry in patients missing a preoperative PET scan to indicate (68)Ga-DOTATOC-PET/CT as method for restaging and follow-up in individual patients.
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