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Discussion of COVID-19 Vaccination and Axillary Lymph Nodes Uptake in 18F-FDG PET/CT  

Min-Chan, Kim (Department of Nuclear Medicine, Severance Hospital, Yonsei University Health System)
Yong-Hoon, Choi (Department of Nuclear Medicine, Severance Hospital, Yonsei University Health System)
Han-Sang, Lim (Department of Nuclear Medicine, Severance Hospital, Yonsei University Health System)
Jae-Sam, Kim (Department of Nuclear Medicine, Severance Hospital, Yonsei University Health System)
Publication Information
The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology / v.26, no.2, 2022 , pp. 32-36 More about this Journal
Abstract
Purpose There are reports that the COVID-19 vaccine causes false positive uptake of axillary lymph nodes. Therefore, this paper intends to evaluate the change in SUVmax of axillary lymph nodes with the period after the COVID-19 vaccination. Materials and Methods In 134 breast cancer patients who were tested for 18F-FDG PET/CT at Severance hospital, 3.7 MBq/kg of 18F-FDG was intravenously injected and scanned for 2 minutes per bed after 60 minutes. The equipment was Discovery 600 (GE Healthcare, MI, USA). The period was divided into four groups, 0 to 2 weeks, 3 to 6 weeks, 7 to 10 weeks, and 11 weeks or more. SUVmax was measured after checking the uptake of axillary lymph nodes on the ipsilateral side of vaccination and the Kruskal-Wallis test was performed using SPSS Statistics 28 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). Results From 0 to 2 weeks groups to 11 weeks or more group, the average of SUVmax was measured in the order of 5.52, 2.85, 1.82, and 1.7. As a result of the Kruskal-Wallis test, there was a significant difference between 0 to 2 weeks group from all other groups (P < 0.05), and there was no significant difference between the remaining three groups. Conclusion The SUVmax of axillary lymph nodes decreased over the period after the COVID-19 vaccination and no significant difference was found after 3 weeks of vaccination. Therefore, it is recommended to record COVID-19 vaccination information before examination.
Keywords
Axillary lymph nodes; SUVmax; Vaccination;
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