Abstract

MELGAR-MARTIN, Sandra; PARDAL-REFOYO, José Luis  and  TAMAYO-ALONSO, María Pilar. Parotid incidentalomas detected by 18F-FDG PET/TC. Review and Meta-analysis. Rev. ORL [online]. 2023, vol.14, n.3, e29558.  Epub Mar 04, 2024. ISSN 2444-7986.  https://dx.doi.org/10.14201/orl.29558.

Introduction and objective: Parotid incidentalomas detected by whole body 18F-FDG PET/CT are defined as an incidental and unforeseen hypermetabolic focus present in the parotid gland, performed for any other reason, in the absence of known parotid lesion. The main objective was to determine the prevalence of parotid incidentalomas in whole body 18F-FDG PET/CT scans performed for any other reason, excluding primary parotid tumors. Method: A systematic review in the databases Pubmed, WOS, EMBASE, as well as other data sources, of retrospective studies that included series of patients in whom 18F-FDG PET/CT had been performed by any other reason and presented incidental parotid uptake. A descriptive study of the variables collected from the sample was carried out. Meta-analysis was performed to assess the prevalence of parotid uptake in the entire sample. Results: 20 articles met inclusion criteria and were selected for qualitative study; of which 19 were quantitatively studied. Studies add up to a total of 151603 patients, who underwent 154441 18F-FDG PET/CT scans. 859 patients (0,57% of the patients, CI 95% 0.53, 0.61%) showed at least one incidental parotid uptake. Among these 859 initial patients, 537 were studied, in who 560 18F-FDG parotid uptakes were detected (0,36% of the imaging techniques, CI 95% 0.34, 0.39%); the remaining patients were not studied due to different reasons. Regarding the distribution of the uptakes, unique focal uptakes (82,.7%, CI 95% 79.3, 85.6%) and unilateral uptakes (93,6%, CI 95% 91.2, 95.3%) were more frequent. Most of pathological studies turned out to be benign (50,4%, CI 95% 46.2, 54.5%). According to this study, mean SUVmax value is useless to distinguish between malignant and benign or non-tumor uptakes. According to the meta-analysis, prevalence of patients with at least one incidental uptake with respect to the total of 18F-FDG PET/CT scans performed is 0,96% (CI 95%, 0.005, 0.014%). Conclusions: Prevalence of parotid incidentalomas in whole body 18F-FDG PET/CT scans performed for any other reason, excluding primary parotid tumors, is 0.96%.

Keywords : Parotid; positron emission tomography; PET/CT; ¹⁸F-FDG; incidentaloma.

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