{"doi":"10.2967/jnumed.121.262882","title":"<sup>18</sup>F-FDG PET/CT for Posttreatment Surveillance Imaging of Patients with Stage III Merkel Cell Carcinoma","abstract":"To investigate diagnostic and prognostic value of <sup>18</sup>F-FDG PET/CT for surveillance imaging in patients treated for Stage III Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC). <b>Methods:</b> This retrospective study included 61 consecutive stage III MCC patients, who were clinically asymptomatic and underwent surveillance FDG-PET/CT. Findings were correlated with either pathology and/or clinical/imaging follow-up. Median follow-up period was 4.8 years. Statistical analyses were performed. <b>Results:</b> FDG-PET/CT detected unsuspected recurrences in 33% patients (20/61) with lesion-based sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of 92%, 93%, and 93%, respectively. Mean±SD SUV for malignant and benign lesions was 7.5±3.9 and 3.8±2.0, respectively. Unknown distant metastases, as first recurrence site, were noted in 12 of 61 patients. Those with positive disease on FDG-PET/CT within one year of definitive treatment had relatively worse overall survival (p&lt;0.0001). After adjustment on stage, risk of death increased with higher SUV<sub>max</sub> (HR for one unit=1.17;<i>P</i> = 0.006) and with a higher number of positive lesions on FDG-PET/CT (HR for one additional lesio<i>n</i> = 1.60;p&lt;0.001). <b>Conclusion:</b> Post-definitive treatment surveillance FDG-PET/CT scan detects unsuspected recurrences and has prognostic value. Inclusion of FDG-PET/CT within the first 6 months after definitive treatment would be appropriate for surveillance and early detection of recurrence. Our data merits further studies to evaluate the prognostic implications.","journal":"Journal of Nuclear Medicine","year":2021,"id":196845,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":5,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.7261,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":343934,"name":"Christopher A. Barker","orcid":"0000-0003-1882-1088","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":291692,"name":"Audrey Mauguen","orcid":"0000-0003-3236-6093","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":245676,"name":"Sandra P. D’Angelo","orcid":"0000-0002-3736-3783","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":271749,"name":"Randy Yeh","orcid":"0000-0003-2945-5546","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":438334,"name":"Neeta Pandit‐Taskar","orcid":"0000-0003-1551-2036","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":336916,"name":"Sonia Mahajan","orcid":"0000-0002-2625-4418","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":30,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:50:19.568641Z","pmid":"34620729","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}