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Diagnostic accuracy of 201Thallium-SPECT and 18F-FDG-PET in the clinical assessment of glioma recurrence

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European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Reliable differential diagnosis between tumour recurrence and treatment-induced lesions is required to take advantage of new therapeutic approaches to recurrent gliomas. Structural imaging methods offer a high sensitivity but a low specificity, which might be improved by neurofunctional imaging. This study aimed to test the hypothesis that incorporation of 18-fluoro-deoxy-glucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) increases the accuracy of this differential diagnosis obtained with 201Tl chloride-single-photon emission computed tomography (201Tl-SPECT).

Materials and methods

Seventy-six patients (mean age 47.72 ± 16.19 years) under suspicion of glioma recurrence, 42% with low-grade and 58% with high-grade lesions, were studied by 201Tl-SPECT and FDG-PET, reporting results under blinded conditions using visual analysis. Tumour was confirmed by histological confirmation (23 patients) or clinical and structural neuroimaging follow-up (mean of 2.6 years).

Results

This population had a high disease prevalence (72%). Globally, highest sensitivity was obtained using 201Tl-SPECT assessed with MRI (96%) and highest specificity using FDG-PET + MRI (95%). FDG-PET appeared slightly better for confirming tumour recurrence, whereas 201Tl-SPECT was superior for ruling out possible recurrence (disease present in 38% of FDG-PET negative explorations). In the high-grade subgroup, there were no false-positive examinations (specificity: 100%), but sensitivity differed among techniques (201Tl-SPECT: 94%; 201Tl-SPECT + MRI: 97%; FDG-PET + MRI: 83%). In the low-grade subgroup, 201Tl-SPECT+ MRI showed highest sensitivity (95%) and lowest posttest negative probability (9%); FDG-PET + MRI offered highest specificity (92%) with a posttest negative probability of 35%.

Conclusions

FDG-PET does not clearly improve the diagnostic accuracy of 201Tl-SPECT, which appears to be a more appropriate examination for the diagnosis of possible brain tumour recurrence, especially for ruling it out.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Richard Davies for assistance with the English version and to Pablo Lardelli-Claret for study design and data analysis supervision.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nuclear Medicine Department, “Virgen de las Nieves”, University Hospital, Avda/ Fuerzas Armadas, 2., 18014, Granada, Spain

    Manuel Gómez-Río, Antonio Rodríguez-Fernández, Carlos Ramos-Font, Escarlata López-Ramírez & José Manuel Llamas-Elvira

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  1. Manuel Gómez-Río
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  2. Antonio Rodríguez-Fernández
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  3. Carlos Ramos-Font
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  4. Escarlata López-Ramírez
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Correspondence to Antonio Rodríguez-Fernández.

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Gómez-Río, M., Rodríguez-Fernández, A., Ramos-Font, C. et al. Diagnostic accuracy of 201Thallium-SPECT and 18F-FDG-PET in the clinical assessment of glioma recurrence. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 35, 966–975 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-007-0661-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-007-0661-5

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