Added value of digital PET in (re)staging patients with pancreatic cancer

For pancreatic cancer, surgery is the only treatment method that can potentially cure the patient. Currently only 20% of the patients are eligible for a surgical resection with curative intention. A recent development in pancreatic cancer treatment is the use of neo-adjuvant chemotherapy before surgery and this has already shown good clinical results. In these patients, contrast-enhanced Computed Tomography scans (ceCT) of the abdomen are acquired for (re)staging. However, response evaluation with CT scans is unreliable because it is not possible to distinguish between post-treatment fibrosis and malignancies. Recently, a novel digital PET/CT system was introduced in Isala, which provides PET images that are significantly more detailed and accurate as compared to the analog PET systems. Furthermore, the tumour marker Serum Ca 19.9 is widely used for pancreatic adenocarcinoma and has shown its value in the assessment of response to neo-adjuvant therapy. The aim of this study is to evaluate the diagnostic value of digital PET/CT as a staging and restaging imaging modality, as compared with ceCT and Ca 19.9, in patients with resectable or borderline resectable pancreatic cancer, who are treated with neo-adjuvant therapy before surgery.

Digital PET improves response evaluation compared to conventional methods

First FDG-PET/CT scan and second FDG-PET/CT scan

Participants will undergo two FDG-PET/CT scans on a digital PET/CT system, before the start of the treatment and after neo-adjuvant chemotherapy treatment