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Corn et al. J Cancer Metastasis Treat 2021;7:41 Journal of Cancer
DOI: 10.20517/2394-4722.2021.63
Metastasis and Treatment

Review Open Access

Incidental thyroid uptake on PET scanning:
epidemiology, clinical significance, and

management challenge

1,2
3
1
1
Sarah Corn , Elliot Mitmaker , Roger Tabah , Anthony Ciarallo , Jacques How 4
1
Divisions of General Surgery and Surgical Oncology, Department of Surgery and Gerald Bronfman Department of Oncology,
McGill University Health Center, Montreal, Quebec H4A 3J1, Canada.
2
Department of Surgery, University of Kansas School of Medicine, Wichita, KS 67214, USA.
3
Division of Nuclear Medicine, Department of Diagnostic Radiology, McGill University Health Center, Montreal, Quebec H4A
3J1, Canada.
4
Division of Endocrinology, McGill University Health Center, Montreal, Quebec H3Y 1A4, Canada.
Correspondence to: Dr. Jacques How, Division of Endocrinology, McGill University Health Center, 1650 Cedar Avenue,
Montreal, Quebec, H3Y 1A4, Canada. E-mail: jacques.how@mcgill.ca
How to cite this article: Corn S, Mitmaker E, Tabah R, Ciarallo A, How J. Incidental thyroid uptake on PET scanning:
epidemiology, clinical significance, and management challenge. J Cancer Metastasis Treat 2021;7:41.
https://dx.doi.org/10.20517/2394-4722.2021.63
Received: 13 Mar 2021 First Decision: 6 May 2021 Revised: 13 May 2021 Accepted: 24 May 2021 First online: 26 May 2021

Academic Editor: Jerome M. Hershman Copy Editor: Yue-Yue Zhang Production Editor: Yue-Yue Zhang

Abstract
Incidental lesions of the thyroid are increasingly discovered as the prevalence of medical imaging escalates. The
likelihood of malignancy must be assessed for each of these incidentalomas. The utility of the metabolic data
derived from the identification of these lesions on PET/CT imaging is unclear. The overall rate of detection of
thyroid incidentalomas on PET/CT is estimated at 1.5%-4.2%. However, this rate varies by the pattern of uptake.
Several studies have evaluated predictive measures such as maximal standardized uptake value (SUV ) and
max
radiomics. However, no definitive conclusion has been reached. Given that the majority of PET/CT scans are
performed in the context of malignancy, we recommend first assessing the general condition and life expectancy of
patients when PET-detected thyroid incidentalomas are unveiled. We also recommend considering observation
versus diagnostic workup with further imaging and/or fine-needle aspiration and cytology.

Keywords: PEToma, PET-detected thyroid incidentaloma, PET-associated incidental neoplasm

© The Author(s) 2021. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, sharing,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, for any purpose, even commercially, as
long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and
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