Effect of drugs containing glucose on FDG-PET image quality

Patients often take prescription drugs for various diseases or complications that contain several grams of glucose. However, the effect of these glucose-containing medications on the image quality of F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) has not been established. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of taking drugs containing glucose before an FDG-PET on the PET image quality.

In total, 736 continuously enrolled patients who underwent FDG-PET were retrospectively analysed. We investigated the total glucose content in the prescription drugs that each patient took during fasting before the FDG injection, and we divided the patients into three groups according to the amount of glucose in their drugs: group A did not take any drugs containing glucose, group B took sugar-coated tablets (containing trace amounts of glucose), and group C took prescription drugs with glucose an ingredient. Visual scores and quantitative variables with standard uptake value (SUV) for the brain, myocardium, blood, liver, and muscle in the FDG-PET images were analysed and statistically compared across the three groups.

In group C, the amount of glucose was 0.63 ± 0.86 g (maximum 4.9 g). For the visual scores, there were no significant differences among the three groups. For the quantitative variables, significant differences were present in the brain SUVmax, muscle SUVmean, brain/blood ratio, brain/liver ratio, and brain/muscle ratio. However, a multivariate analysis showed that the group indicator was not significantly associated with any of the quantitative variables. On the other hand, blood glucose was significantly associated with the visual and quantitative variables. In group C, the correlation coefficient between the amount of glucose and the blood glucose level, the visual scores and the quantitative variables were in the range of - 0.121 to 0.100 and were not significant.

There were no significant differences between glucose-containing medications before FDG-PET and the visual scores and quantitative variables for FDG-PET image. Several grams of glucose in drugs before FDG-PET can be ignored.