ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Pediatric Oncology
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1627403
[ 18 F]mFBG PET/CT surpasses [ 18 F]FDG PET/CT for evaluation of pediatric neuroblastoma
Provisionally accepted
wenqian zhang1
Chao Yang2Zhenzhen Zhao2Shunhao Zhou1
Yanyao han1Chenxi Zheng1Yalan Xiong1Changchun Li2
Yao Zhang2Zhenni Wang2
Liang Cai1*Shan Wang2*- 1the Second Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China
- 2Children‘s Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China
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Purpose [ 18 F]FDG PET/CT serves as an alternative imaging modality for neuroblastoma in cases where [ 123 I]MIBG yields negative results or is unavailable.[ 18 F]mFBG, a novel PET tracer for neuroblastoma imaging, requires further clinical validation. This preliminary study aims to evaluate the efficacy of [ 18 F]mFBG PET/CT compared to [ 18 F]FDG PET/CT in detecting neuroblastoma.In this retrospective investigation, 56 pediatric patients were enrolled. Each patient underwent both [ 18 F]mFBG PET/CT and [ 18 F]FDG PET/CT within one week. Two children underwent a second paired [ 18 F]FDG-[ 18 F]mFBG PET/CT scan. In total, 58 paired scans (mean age 47.6±38.0 months, range 6-108 months) were performed. Two experienced readers measured normal organ uptake (SUVmean), lesion uptake (SUVmax), and tumor-to-background ratio (TBR) . A lesion-by-lesion analysis was conducted to compare detection rates between [ 18 F]mFBG and [ 18 F]FDG.Twenty paired scans exhibited negative findings on both [ 18 F]mFBG and [ 18 F]FDG studies. Among the remaining 38 scans, 8 (21.05%) were [ 18 F]mFBG-positive/[ 18 F]FDG-negative, 1 (2.63%) was [ 18 F]FDG-positive/[ 18 F]mFBG-negative, and 29 (76.32%) were positive on both tracers. In these 38 scans, [ 18 F]mFBG PET/CT identified 431 lesions, whereas [ 18 F]FDG PET/CT detected only 162 lesions (p<0.001). Six of eight [ 18 F]mFBG-positive/[ 18 F]FDG-negative cases were histopathologically confirmed as neuroblastoma. The mean TBR of [ 18 F]mFBG PET/CT(6.68±5.76) was significantly higher (p<0.001) than that of [ 18 F]FDG PET/CT (4.49±2.88).]mFBG PET/CT detected more neuroblastoma lesions than [ 18 F]FDG PET/CT, suggesting it may be a more viable alternative when standard [ 123 I]MIBG scanning is not feasible.
Keywords: Data collecting, statistical analysis, investigation, Writing-original draft, writing-reviewing and editing. Chao Yang:Data collecting, writing-reviewing and editing Data collecting, writing-reviewing and editing Liang Cai:conceptualisation, methodology
Received: 12 May 2025; Accepted: 13 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 zhang, Yang, Zhao, Zhou, han, Zheng, Xiong, Li, Zhang, Wang, Cai and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Liang Cai, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China
Shan Wang, Children‘s Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China
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