SHTG Advice Statement and Evidence Note, April 2019
Advice for NHS Scotland
- In primary tumour staging in patients diagnosed with anal cancer, FDG PET-CT should be considered as an adjunct to clinical assessment and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or computed tomography (CT) imaging.
- For radiotherapy treatment planning in patients with anal cancer, FDG PET-CT should be considered as an adjunct to clinical assessment and MRI or CT imaging.
- It is not possible to provide advice on the use of FDG PET-CT for monitoring of treatment response in patients with anal cancer due to a lack of studies assessing this outcome.
- There is uncertainty about the balance of costs and benefits of FDG PET-CT for anal cancer due to a lack of published cost effectiveness studies. Cost data for FDG PET-CT in Scotland should be collected in future to inform further assessments on this technology.
