Recurrent pneumonia due to bronchial carcinoid tumour in a young patient: the role of (111)in-pentetreotide in imaging studies.

Bronchial carcinoid tumours are an uncommon cause of recurrent pneumonia in young patients. Diagnosis is determined from imaging studies, bronchoscopy, and histological confirmation, and treatment is generally surgical. Two cases are reviewed in order to examine the value of (111)In-DTPA-Phe-octreotide ((111)In-pentetreotide) scintigraphy in the pre-surgical evaluation of these patients. After a suspicious area was observed in other tests (standard X-ray, CT), a neuroendocrine tumour was diagnosed using this technique and the presence of regional or distant disease was ruled out. Comparison with the less valuable (18)F-FDG PET (carried out in one of the cases) highlights the usefulness of SPECT-CT, which performs notably better in terms of the localization and characterisation of findings.