One-stop local and whole-body staging of children with cancer

Accurate staging and re-staging of cancer in children is crucial for patient management. Currently, children with a newly diagnosed cancer must undergo a series of imaging tests, which are stressful, time-consuming, partially redundant, expensive, and can require repetitive anesthesia. New approaches for pediatric cancer staging can evaluate the primary tumor and metastases in a single session. However, traditional one-stop imaging tests, such as CT and positron emission tomography (PET)/CT, are associated with considerable radiation exposure. This is particularly concerning for children because they are more sensitive to ionizing radiation than adults and they live long enough to experience secondary cancers later in life. In this review article we discuss child-tailored imaging tests for tumor detection and therapy response assessment — tests that can be obtained with substantially reduced radiation exposure compared to traditional CT and PET/CT scans. This includes diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI)/MRI and integrated [F-18]2-fluoro-2-deoxyglucose (¹⁸F-FDG) PET/MRI scans. While several investigators have compared the value of DWI/MRI and ¹⁸F-FDG PET/MRI for staging pediatric cancer, the value of these novel imaging technologies for cancer therapy monitoring has received surprisingly little attention. In this article, we share our experiences and review existing literature on this subject.