Background: As somatostatin receptors (SSTRs) may be overexpressed in rapidly growing vessels, the aim of this study was the analysis of in vivo and in vitro SSTR2A expression in juvenile angiofibroma (JA).
Material & methods: A group of six male adolescents with a diagnosis of primary, recurrent/residual JA was enrolled in the study. All patients underwent (68)Ga-DOTATATE PET/computed tomography (CT) followed by immunohistochemical staining for SSTR expression.
Results: (68)Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT showed accumulation in areas matching the pathologic tissue in the nasopharynx of all patients studied with SUVmax of 5.1 ± 0.9 (ranging from 3.6 to 6.4). In all cases, the immunohistochemical examination showed a presence of SSTR2A with a high staining index.
Conclusion: In vitro SSTR2A cytoplasm expression was found to be high in all tumor specimens. However, the uptake of (68)Ga-DOTATATE was weak in the PET/CT studies. We postulate that the intracellular localization of the SSTR2A in JA may cause this discrepancy.
Keywords: 68Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT; head and neck; imaging; immunohistochemistry; juvenile angiofibroma; somatostatin receptor.