An intrapatient comparison of 99Tcm-HYNIC-TOC imaging and 68Ga-DOTA-TATE imaging on patients with gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasms

Abstract

Objective To compare the diagnostic performances of 99Tcm-HYNIC-TOC SPECT and 68Ga-DOTA-TATE PET/CT on patients with gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasm (GEP-NEN). Methods From May 2013 to February 2014, 34 patients (17 males, 17 females; age: 23-75 years) with histologically proven GEP-NEN were enrolled in the study. All patients underwent 99Tcm-HYNIC-TOC SPECT imaging and 68Ga-DOTA-TATE PET/CT imaging. χ2 test and two-sample t test were used to analyze the data. Results The positive rate of 99Tcm-HYNIC-TOC imaging was 58.8%(20/34), which had no statistical difference with that of 68Ga-DOTA-TATE imaging (70.6%, 24/34; χ2=2.25, P>0.05). However, taking lesions as the target, the detection positive rate of 68Ga-DOTA-TATE imaging (15.7%, 48/306) was statistically higher than that of 99Tcm-HYNIC-TOC imaging (9.5%, 29/306; χ2=17.50, P<0.05), especially for the lymph nodes, liver and skeleton lesions. For the liver lesions, the short diameter and SUVmax of 99Tcm-HYNIC-TOC positive lesions in the liver were statistically higher than those of negative lesions (t=4.4 and 3.2, both P<0.05). Conclusion Compared with 99Tcm-HYNIC-TOC scintigraphy, 68Ga-DOTA-TATE PET/CT imaging shows a significantly higher detection rate on small or structure-complex lesions on GEP-NEN patients. Key words: Neuroendocrine tumors; Tomography, emission-computed, single-photon; Tomography, emission-computed; Tomography, X-ray computed; Technetium; Gallium radioisotopes; HYNIC-TOC; DOTA-TATE