The Utility of 18F-FDG PET/CT for Monitoring Response and Predicting Prognosis after Glucocorticoids Therapy for Sarcoidosis

Sarcoidosis has significant heterogeneity involving multiple organs; treatment of the disease is a significant therapeutic challenge due to the difficulties in accurately monitoring disease activity and estimating prognosis. Fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (F-18-FDG-PET/CT) plays an important role in assessing the metabolic activity. However, there is not enough evidence about the influence of this method in the clinical management and prognosis prediction for sarcoidosis. This study aims to investigate the clinical utility of F-18-FDG PET/CT for therapeutic evaluation and prognostic prediction in sarcoidosis. We had retrospectively enrolled 23 patients with sarcoidosis assigned to receive systemic glucocorticoids. All patients underwent baseline F-18-FDG PET/CT before initiating therapy and follow-up F-18-FDG PET/CT within 3 months after the therapy. The metabolic and clinical responses were classified. The baseline F-18-FDG PET/CT showed increased uptake in all patients. Based solely on biopsy-proven sites, the sensitivity of F-18-FDG PET/CT was 91.7%, and the sensitivity improved to 100% after excluding skin involvement. In the subsequent follow-up PET scans within 3 months after glucocorticoids therapy, the SUVmax were variously decreased except one; there are significant differences in the clinical remission rates and the relapse rates between patients with a favorable response and cases with no response on follow-up PET scan, the increasing metabolic response was associated with the increase in clinical remission rates and the reduction in recurrence rates. In conclusion, the present study shows that F-18-FDG PET/CT is an effective way to monitor the early therapeutic reaction and is helpful in predicting the long-term prognosis of sarcoidosis.