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CASE REPORT article

Front. Oncol.
Sec. Cancer Imaging and Image-directed Interventions
Volume 14 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2024.1474105

Application value of 18 F-FDG PET/ CT in soft tissue metastasis of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma: a case report and literature review

Provisionally accepted
Siwen Liu Siwen Liu 1,2xiaohui sun xiaohui sun 1,2*yu liu yu liu 1,2*ning shi ning shi 1,2*xiaoli zhang xiaoli zhang 1,2*yuechao yu yuechao yu 1,2*
  • 1 Second Affiliated Hospital, Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, China
  • 2 Department of Nuclear medicine, xuzhou, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC)originates from the epithelial cells of the intrahepatic bile ducts, with insidious onset and strong invasiveness, and most of the cases are found in the advanced stage, with extremely poor prognosis. In advanced stages, distant metastases to the lungs, bones, and brain are common, but distant soft tissue (subcutaneous and skeletal muscle) and breast metastases are rare, and simultaneous metastases to all three rare sites had not been reported. We report a 69-year-old woman with right upper abdominal pain who underwent a plain and enhanced CT scan of the upper abdomen, which revealed an intrahepatic space-occupying lesion, as well as subcutaneous and peritoneal nodules in the abdomen. To further evaluate the presence of other metastases, an 18F-FDG PET/CT scan was performed, which showed abnormal FDG uptake in the liver, peritoneum, left upper femur, right breast, subcutaneous tissues of the thoracic and abdominal regions, and skeletal muscle, while the corresponding CT densities of part of the skeletal muscle and the left upper femur did not show any significant abnormality. Pathologic confirmation of ICC with multiple metastases was obtained by puncture biopsy of the liver and subcutaneous nodes. This case demonstrates the advantages of 18F-FDG PET/CT in comprehensively evaluating systemic metastasis of ICC and detecting occult metastases, which is of great significance in its clinical diagnosis and staging.

    Keywords: PET/CT, Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC), soft tissue, metastasis, 18F-FDG

    Received: 22 Aug 2024; Accepted: 26 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Liu, sun, liu, shi, zhang and yu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    xiaohui sun, Second Affiliated Hospital, Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, China
    yu liu, Second Affiliated Hospital, Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, China
    ning shi, Second Affiliated Hospital, Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, China
    xiaoli zhang, Second Affiliated Hospital, Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, China
    yuechao yu, Second Affiliated Hospital, Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, China

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