Objective: The present study aimed to identify the clinical significance of
fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) imaging in patients with occupational
cholangiocarcinoma. Methods: This study included 10 men with occupational
cholangiocarcinoma who were former or current workers at a printing company in Osaka, Japan. Of the 10 patients, 2 had 2 main
tumors and 1 had 3 main
tumors. Twelve FDG-PET imaging findings in the 10 patients could be analyzed. We evaluated the relationships between FDG-PET imaging parameters and clinicopathological findings of occupational
cholangiocarcinoma. Results: Abnormal FDG uptake was observed in 8 of the 14 main
tumors, with maximum standardized uptake values ranging from 2.9 to 11.0, and the sensitivity was 57.1%. Four patients had
lymph node metastases, and abnormal marrow uptake was detected in all these patients. Although precancerous lesions, such as biliary intraepithelial
neoplasia (
BilIN) and intraductal papillary
neoplasm of the bile duct (IPNB) without any invasion, were not detected, abnormal FDG uptake was demonstrated in 2 of 4 patients with IPNB having an associated invasive
carcinoma.Conclusions: Although FDG-PET may be useful for assessing
tumor progression factors, such as
lymph node metastasis, it cannot accurately detect precancerous lesions, such as
BilIN and IPNB without invasive
carcinoma.