<sup>18</sup>F-FDG-avid thyroid incidentaloma (TI) is seen in approximately 2.5% of patients imaged for staging or response assessment of malignancy and represents thyroid cancer in approximately 35% of cases.
In a previous study, FDG PET tumor segmentation (SegPHL) using the peritumoral halo layer (PHL) was more reliable than fixed threshold methods in patients with thyroid cancer.
Univariate and multivariate analyses showed no significant increase in the risk of thyroid cancer among patients with focal or multifocal FDG uptake compared to patients with no FDG uptake.
As cancer stem cells (CSCs) possess a dedifferentiated phenotype and are resistant to many anticancer therapies, we hypothesized that the expression of CSC-related markers is correlated with the ability of tumor cells in TC to uptake FDG.