Discussion
PEDIATRIC CANCER
aBAT on Our results show that aBAT frequency did not differ between male and female patients, which is in line with several previously performed studies (one with 385 scans, the other with 2792 scans in pediatric cancer patients)With regard to age, we observed that pediatric patients under the age of 11 had less aBAT compared to patients over the age of 11. This result was of borderline significance on univariate analysis and turned out to be of non-significance on multivariate analysis. Nevertheless, it corresponds well to the trend seen in the data published by Brady et al.: In this study, the frequency of aBAT in patients under the age of 12 ranged from 7 to 17%, whereas it ranged from 22 to 29% in patients in between 12 and 20 years. Gilsanz et al.We were able to confirm that the occurrence of aBAT is dependent on the outdoor temperature, whereby aBAT frequency increased with decreasing outdoor temperatures and decreased with increasing outdoor temperatures, respectivelyAnother finding of our research was that propranolol as an unselective beta-blocker had the same effect as warming. However, this result was of borderline significance, probably because propranolol was less often used as single preventive measure in our dataset. Nevertheless, this result corresponds well with evidence in the literature. Thereafter propranolol is highly effective in preventing aBATFinally, there is the suggestion that combining warming and propranolol may further reduce the risk of aBAT. However, this remains a hypothesis, which requires further confirmation since our data lack the power to prove this additive effect.Few limitations of our study should be considered: it was a retrospective observational study without randomization. The group in which only propranolol was used was too small to obtain final results on its effectiveness. Information from the centres on the use of air conditioning systems in uptake rooms would have been of interest, since all data came from nuclear medicine departments in Germany and Czech Republic. The use of air conditioning systems is expectedly less frequent in these two countries compared to warmer regions in the European Union (e.g. Spain, Italy) or the United States.