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A novel PET scanner with semiconductor detectors may improve diagnostic accuracy in the metastatic survey of head and neck cancer patients

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Abstract

Objectives

Our research group developed new PET scanner with semiconductor detectors for high spatial resolution with low scatter noise. On head and neck cancer (HNC) surgery, FDG-PET may often provide false-positive findings in cervical node involvements. Accordingly, we assessed diagnostic accuracy using this new scanner in the HNC patients as compared with the conventional lutetium oxyorthosilicate (LSO) PET.

Methods

We prospectively studied FDG imaging in 35 HNC patients by both semiconductor PET and LSO-PET. At 60 min after 18F-FDG injection, two PET scans were obtained using both scanners consecutively and in random order. Two nuclear medicine specialists scored FDG abnormalities using 5 point scale system for receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis.

Results

63 suspected of metastatic or recurrent lesions were evaluated and correlated by the final confirmation by pathological findings or clinical courses (malignant 26/benign 37). Semiconductor PET showed sensitivity of 92.3 % (24/26), specificity of 51.4 % (19/37), and accuracy of 68.2 % (43/63), while LSO-PET showed sensitivity of 84.6 % (22/26), specificity of 16.2 %(6/37), and accuracy of 44.4 % (28/63), respectively. Especially, semiconductor PET accurately diagnosed as true negative in the 13 of 14 lesions only detected by LSO-PET. ROC analyses revealed the diagnostic superiority of semiconductor PET from location of- and area under curve particularly in the study of small (≤10 mm) lesions.

Conclusion

A new novel semiconductor PET scanner can increase diagnostic accuracy with reduction in false positive findings in the HNC patients mainly due to higher spatial resolution and lower noise than the LSO-PET. This new technology can lead to more accurate diagnosis and the more optimal therapeutic tactics in head and neck surgery.

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Acknowledgments

We thank nuclear medicine technologists, Hidehiko Omote and Hiroshi Arai. We are grateful to Dr Kenji Hirata and Naoya Hattori for clinical study.

Conflict of interest

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nuclear Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Hokkaido University, Kita15 Nishi7, Kita-ku, Sapporo, 060-8638, Japan

    Toshiki Takei, Tohru Shiga, Shozo Okamoto, Keiichi Magota & Nagara Tamaki

  2. Central Research Laboratory, Hitachi Ltd, Hitachi, Ibaraki, Japan

    Yuichi Morimoto, Wataru Takeuchi & Kazuki Matsuzaki

  3. Department of Molecular Imaging, Graduate School of Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan

    Kikuo Umegaki

  4. Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Graduate School of Medicine, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan

    Toshihiro Hara & Satoshi Fukuda

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  1. Toshiki Takei
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  2. Tohru Shiga
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  4. Wataru Takeuchi
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Correspondence to Tohru Shiga.

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Takei, T., Shiga, T., Morimoto, Y. et al. A novel PET scanner with semiconductor detectors may improve diagnostic accuracy in the metastatic survey of head and neck cancer patients. Ann Nucl Med 27, 17–24 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12149-012-0654-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12149-012-0654-8

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