Clinical implications of non-breast cancer related findings on FDG-PET/CT scan prior to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with breast cancer

Breast cancer (BC) patients undergoing FDG-PET/CT scans for neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) may have additional non-BC related findings. The aim of this study is to describe the clinical implications of these findings. We included BC patients who underwent an FDG-PET/CT scan in our institute between 2011–2020 prior to NAC. We focused on patients with an additional non-BC related finding (i.e. BC metastases were excluded) for which diagnostic work-up was performed. Information about the diagnostic work-up and the clinical consequences was retrospectively gathered. A revision of all FDG-PET/CT scans was conducted by an independent physician to assess the suspicion level of the additional findings. Of the 1337 patients who underwent FDG-PET/CT, 202 patients (15