The Role of Molecular Imaging in a Muscle-Invasive Bladder Cancer Patient: A Narrative Review in the Era of Multimodality Treatment

Vincenzo Cuccurullo; Giuseppe Danilo Di Stasio; Francesco Manti; Pierpaolo Arcuri; Rocco Damiano; Giuseppe Lucio Cascini

doi:10.3390/diagnostics11050863

The Role of Molecular Imaging in a Muscle-Invasive Bladder Cancer Patient: A Narrative Review in the Era of Multimodality Treatment

Diagnostics (Basel). 2021 May 11;11(5):863. doi: 10.3390/diagnostics11050863.

Authors

Vincenzo Cuccurullo¹, Giuseppe Danilo Di Stasio², Francesco Manti³, Pierpaolo Arcuri³, Rocco Damiano⁴, Giuseppe Lucio Cascini³

Affiliations

¹ Nuclear Medicine Unit, Department of Precision Medicine, Università della Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli", 81100 Napoli, Italy.
² Nuclear Medicine Division, European Institute of Oncology, 20144 Milan, Italy.
³ Nuclear Medicine Unit, Department of Diagnostic Imaging, Magna Graecia University of Catanzaro, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy.
⁴ Unit of Urology, Magna Graecia University, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy.

Abstract

Diagnostic imaging in bladder cancer plays an important role since it is needed from pretreatment staging to follow-up, but a morphological evaluation performed with both CT and MRI showed low sensitivities and specificities in detecting pathologic lymph nodes, due to the occurrence of false positive results. Implementation of functional information provided by PET/CT could be a determinant in the management of patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer. A focus on the role of ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT and alternative tracers in patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer is provided in this analysis in order to outline its potential applications in staging settings and response evaluation after neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

Keywords: PET/CT; bladder cancer; diagnostic imaging; hybrid imaging; nuclear medicine; response evaluation; restaging.

Publication types

Review