Gastrointestinal 18F-FDG accumulation on PET without a corresponding CT abnormality is not an early indicator of cancer development

Focal gastrointestinal 2-deoxy-2-¹⁸F]-fluoro-D-glucose (FDG) uptake can frequently be found on FDG-PET/CT even in patients without known gastrointestinal malignancy. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether increased gastrointestinal FDG uptake without CT correlate is an early indicator of patients developing gastrointestinal malignancies. A total of 1,006 patients without esophagogastric or anorectal malignancies underwent FDG-PET/CT. The esophagogastric junction, the stomach and the anorectum were evaluated for increased FDG uptake. Patients without elevated uptake were assigned to group A, patients with elevated uptake were allocated to group B. The SUVmax values of both groups were tested for significant differences using the U test. A follow-up of longer than 1 year (mean 853 ± 414 days) served as gold standard. A total of 460 patients had to be excluded based on insufficient follow-up data. For the remaining 546 patients the mean SUVmax was as follows: (a) esophagogastric junction, group A 3.1 ± 0.66, group B 4.0 ± 1.11, p < 0.01; (b) stomach, group A 2.8 ± 0.77, group B 4.1 ± 1.33, p < 0.01; (c) rectal ampulla, group A 2.8 ± 0.83, group B 3.9 ± 1.49, p < 0.01; (d) anal canal, group A 2.7 ± 0.55, group B 3.9 ± 1.59, p < 0.01. Only one patient developed gastric cancer. In the case of an unremarkable CT, elevated esophagogastric or anorectal FDG uptake does not predict cancer development and does not have to be investigated further.