Clinical usefulness of fused PET/CT compared with PET alone or CT alone in nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients.
The diagnostic accuracy of fused positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) was compared with CT alone and PET alone in the staging and re-staging of nasopharyngeal carcinoma ( NPC) patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Eighty-six fluorine-18-2-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (FDG) PET/CT studies were retrospectively performed in 70 patients with NPC, 20 patients for primary tumor staging and 50 patients for re-staging after treatment. Each lesion was analyzed visually and assigned a score on a 5-point scale. Each study was interpreted in 3 ways: PET images were evaluated in the absence of CT data, CT images in the absence of PET data and fused PET/CT images. The results of these images were correlated with histological findings, as well as long-term radiological and clinical follow-up (the shortest follow-up period after imaging was 6 months). PET, CT and PET/CT accuracy were compared by a McNemar test. RESULTS: Fused PET/CT correctly characterized the tumor-node-metastasis system stage in 82 out of 86 studies (95.4%; 95% CI: 90.9% to 99.9%). PET alone and CT alone were found to be accurate in 71 out of 86 studies (82.6%; 95% CI: 74.5% to 90.6%) and 63 out of 86 studies (73.3%; 95% CI: 63.9% to 82.6%), respectively. Furthermore, the differences between PET/CT and either PET alone or CT alone were statistically significant (p<0.05). Overall, the study-based analysis of PET/CT for staging NPC demonstrated 48 true-positive, 2 false-negative, 34 true-negative and 2 false-positive studies. The sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of FDG-PET/CT studies for staging NPC were 96%, 94.4%, 95.4%, 96% and 94.4%, respectively. Conclusion: PET/CT is more accurate than PET alone or CT alone for the depiction of NPC. Fused PET/CT is a valuable imaging tool in patients for staging diagnosis of NPC.[1]References
- Clinical usefulness of fused PET/CT compared with PET alone or CT alone in nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients. Chen, Y.K., Su, C.T., Ding, H.J., Chi, K.H., Liang, J.A., Shen, Y.Y., Chen, L.K., Yeh, C.L., Liao, A.C., Kao, C.H. Anticancer Res. (2006) [Pubmed]
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