Abstract
Pulmonary alveolar microlithiasis (PAM) is a very rare disease in which multiple microscopic calcium phosphate microliths are deposited within the alveoli of both lungs. A lung biopsy is considered to be definitive for final diagnosis; however, non-invasive imaging modalities such as chest X-ray, HRCT scan and 99mTc-MDP bone scan suggest the diagnosis in the vast majority of patients. Although 18F-FDG PET/CT has been tried to characterize the disease, 18F-sodium fluoride PET/CT as a ‘proof-of-principle’ was tried for the first time in a known case of PAM in order to characterize the lung lesions. Interestingly, we noted that 18F-sodium fluoride PET/CT is a superior modality in characterization and assessment of the extent of disease in PAM compared to all other non-invasive imaging modalities. Thus, we recommend that 18F-sodium fluoride PET/CT should be the investigation of choice in PAM.
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Sahoo, M.K., Karunanithi, S. & Bal, C.S. Pulmonary alveolar microlithiasis: imaging characteristics of planar and SPECT/CT bone scan versus 18F-FDG and 18F-sodium fluoride PET/CT scanning. Jpn J Radiol 31, 766–769 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11604-013-0250-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11604-013-0250-4