Publications by authors named "Francesco Fraioli"

Article Synopsis
  • Biomarkers in psychiatry are essential for better diagnosis and management, and radionuclide imaging (PET and SPECT) shows potential for practical use, particularly in schizophrenia-spectrum disorders.
  • A systematic review evaluated 56 longitudinal studies involving 1,329 patients, focusing on the impact of PET and SPECT imaging on diagnosis and treatment personalization.
  • Key findings indicated that PET and SPECT can predict treatment responses and optimize dosages of antipsychotic medications, highlighting the need for more clinical trials to confirm these benefits.
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Purpose: To provide practice guideline/procedure standards for diagnostics and therapy (theranostics) of meningiomas using radiolabeled somatostatin receptor (SSTR) ligands.

Methods: This joint practice guideline/procedure standard was collaboratively developed by the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM), the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI), the European Association of Neurooncology (EANO), and the PET task force of the Response Assessment in Neurooncology Working Group (PET/RANO).

Results: Positron emission tomography (PET) using somatostatin receptor (SSTR) ligands can detect meningioma tissue with high sensitivity and specificity and may provide clinically relevant information beyond that obtained from structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or computed tomography (CT) imaging alone.

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The use of [F]FDG PET/CT as a biomarker in diffuse lung diseases is increasingly recognized. We investigated the correlation between [F]FDG uptake with histologic markers on lung biopsy of patients with fibrotic interstitial lung disease (fILD). We recruited 18 patients with fILD awaiting lung biopsy for [F]FDG PET/CT.

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Epilepsy is one of the most frequent neurological conditions with an estimated prevalence of more than 50 million people worldwide and an annual incidence of two million. Although pharmacotherapy with anti-seizure medication (ASM) is the treatment of choice, ~30% of patients with epilepsy do not respond to ASM and become drug resistant. Focal epilepsy is the most frequent form of epilepsy.

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A 75-year-old patient was referred with biochemical recurrence for prostate cancer. The patient underwent 68 Ga-PSMA (prostate-specific membrane antigen) PET/CT scan, which revealed a focal PSMA activity in the proximal left lateral penile margin. Although a subsequent ultrasound did not identify the abnormality, MRI pelvis revealed a 10-mm lesion in the left proximal corpus cavernosum.

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Therapeutic approaches to brain tumors remain a challenge, with considerable limitations regarding delivery of drugs. There has been renewed and increasing interest in translating the popular theranostic approach well known from prostate and neuroendocrine cancer to neurooncology. Although far from perfect, some of these approaches show encouraging preliminary results, such as for meningioma and leptomeningeal spread of certain pediatric brain tumors.

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A 71-year-old man with a newly discovered metastatic grade II neuroendocrine tumor of the terminal ileum was referred for a 68 Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT scan to stage the disease and assess suitability for PRRT (peptide receptor radionuclide therapy). The patient was known to have secondary nodal and bone/liver metastatic disease through prior morphological investigations. PET images revealed an atypical pattern of metastatic disease, showcasing secondary lesions in bilateral extraocular muscles, the myocardium, and both testes.

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Genitourinary involvement of sarcoidosis is an uncommon occurrence. In this report, we present [ 18 F] FDG PET/CT of a young adult man with sarcoidosis involving the epididymis, and we discuss the utility of FDG PET imaging in diagnosis and assessment of response to treatment.

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Article Synopsis
  • * Most patients with NSCLC can’t be completely cured, and many might have their cancer come back or spread to other parts of the body.
  • * Doctors use a special scan called FDG-PET/CT to check how well treatment is working, but it's best to wait at least 3 months after treatment to do this, depending on the treatment type.
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Article Synopsis
  • Epilepsy is a common brain condition where some people have seizures that don't get better with medicine, and surgery might help them.
  • SPECT scans are tests that show how blood flows in the brain, helping doctors find out where the seizures start, especially if other tests like MRI don't show anything.
  • For the best results, doctors need to prepare the patient carefully and work closely together, as SPECT tests can have limits, and sometimes more tests are needed to understand the results better.
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Objective: The heterogeneity of post-treatment imaging remains a significant challenge in children and teenagers/young adults (TYA) diagnosed with glioma. The aim of this study was to evaluate the utility of 18 F-choline PET/MRI in determining intratumoural heterogeneity in paediatric and TYA gliomas.

Methods: Twenty-six patients (mean age 16 years, range 8-22 years) with suspected glioma disease progression were evaluated with 18 F-choline PET/MRI.

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Objective: To assess the prognostic performance of two quantitative CT (qCT) techniques in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) compared to established clinical measures of disease severity (GAP index).

Methods: Retrospective analysis of high-resolution CT scans for 59 patients (age 70.5 ± 8.

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Molecular imaging techniques have rapidly progressed over recent decades providing unprecedented in vivo characterization of metabolic pathways and molecular biomarkers. Many of these new techniques have been successfully applied in the field of neuro-oncological imaging to probe tumor biology. Targeting specific signaling or metabolic pathways could help to address several unmet clinical needs that hamper the management of patients with brain tumors.

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The aim of this study was to assess the temporal evolution of pulmonary F-FDG uptake in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and post-COVID-19 lung disease (PCLD). Using our hospital's clinical electronic records, we retrospectively identified 23 acute COVID-19, 18 PCLD, and 9 completely recovered F-FDG PET/CT patients during the 2 peaks of the U.K.

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